---
title: Demis Hassabis Steps Back From Running Google DeepMind as Jeff Dean Leaves the Company
description: Sundar Pichai has put Koray Kavukcuoglu in charge of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis becomes chair, and Jeff Dean is leaving to start Discovery Loop.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-08-05T17:40:16.320Z
updated: 2026-08-05T17:40:16.337Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/google-deepmind-leadership-hassabis-chair-dean-exit
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/demis-hassabis-nobel-2024.webp
categories: Artificial Intelligence
content_type: News
region: Global
publication: Sovereign Magazine
schema_type: Article
---

Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai announced a reshuffle of Google's artificial intelligence leadership on Wednesday, handing day to day control of Google DeepMind to Koray Kavukcuoglu and moving Demis Hassabis into a chair role. On the same day, Jeff Dean and three other senior researchers said they are leaving to start their own company. Alphabet shares fell as much as 5% on the news, Business Insider reported.

## Kavukcuoglu Takes Over Gemini and Frontier Research

Kavukcuoglu, previously Google DeepMind's chief technology officer, becomes senior vice president and reports directly to Pichai. He will oversee Gemini model development, Frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams, and he remains Google's chief AI architect, according to The Verge.

“Koray has been at DeepMind since its early days, and over his 13 years there, he has started our deep learning team and led the way on breakthroughs like WaveNet and DQN,” Pichai said. “I look forward to seeing him lead GDM into this next chapter.”

Hassabis, in a memo published by Google, backed the choice. “He is one of the world's foremost AI experts and has been championing GDM's mission from day one,” Hassabis said of Kavukcuoglu, with whom he has worked for more than 13 years. “The Gemini models are in good hands with Koray and the leads, as they have been for a while, and I'm excited about the great progress we're making with our new models including Gemini 4.”

## Hassabis Becomes Chair of DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet

In [a post on X](https://x.com/demishassabis/status/2085034334914769203), Hassabis wrote that the new role would let him focus on long-term strategy and on accelerating scientific breakthroughs. In his memo he called this a pivotal moment in human history. “I've been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand,” he said, adding that it is critical the next steps are taken carefully for humanity.

The handover, he wrote, gives him “the time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come to the best of my ability”. Pichai said the new role allows Hassabis “to put his full attention on actively shaping the future of AGI”.

Hassabis had been tipped by some as a future Alphabet chief executive, Business Insider reported. He keeps his job as chief executive of Isomorphic Labs, the DeepMind spin-off using AI to develop drugs, and will continue to work with Pichai on strategic and global AGI matters and to advise Kavukcuoglu and the DeepMind leads.

> "As you've heard me say many times, I've always believed the No.1 application of AI should be to improve human health. It's time for AI to prove its unequivocal value to the world, and what better way to demonstrate that than to help finally cure diseases like cancer."
> — Demis Hassabis, Chair of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet

## Jeff Dean and Three Colleagues Leave to Start Discovery Loop

Dean is departing alongside Quoc V. Le, Oriol Vinyals and Sanjay Ghemawat to [form a start-up called Discovery Loop](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/technology/google-researchers-ai-startup.html), The New York Times reported. Google is a founding investor and cloud partner, and says it plans to collaborate with the new company on a research framework for machine learning systems and related infrastructure.

Dean was Google's 30th employee and is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the company's history, having helped create the computer network behind its search business before becoming one of its early AI research leaders, according to the Times. His profile inside Google had appeared to wane in recent years as other executives, including co-founder Sergey Brin, took control of the company's all-in bet on AI, the paper reported.

Discovery Loop wants to make AI that improves itself with little or no human help, a process known as recursive self-improvement, which its founders believe can speed up the design of computer hardware, the discovery of drugs and the creation of new materials. “We think there is opportunity for A.I. to more fully automate what has traditionally been a very human-intensive experimental loop,” Dean told the Times. “You will get both a higher quantity and a higher quality of experiments, and that will lead to scientific breakthroughs and advances.”

## Hassabis Says Google Is World-Class at Every Layer

Google has struggled lately to keep up with the frontier labs [Anthropic and OpenAI](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/anthropic-volta-bitdeer-norway-compute), especially in [AI coding](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/microsoft-ai-token-budget-copilot-engineers), Business Insider reported.

Hassabis closed his memo on the company's position. “We are the only company that has the full stack and we're world-class at every layer from infrastructure to cloud to frontier models to AI-first applications,” he wrote. “We have all the ingredients to lead from here, and I firmly believe we will.”

## FAQ

**Q: Who runs Google DeepMind now?**
Koray Kavukcuoglu, who becomes senior vice president reporting to Sundar Pichai, now oversees Gemini model development, Frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams. He remains Google's chief AI architect.

**Q: Is Demis Hassabis leaving Google?**
No. Hassabis is moving into a new role as Chair of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet, handing over day to day responsibilities at DeepMind but staying at the company. He continues to advise Pichai and Kavukcuoglu and remains chief executive of Isomorphic Labs.

**Q: What is Discovery Loop?**
Discovery Loop is a new independent public benefit corporation founded by Jeff Dean, Quoc V. Le, Oriol Vinyals and Sanjay Ghemawat, all departing Google researchers. It aims to make AI capable of recursive self-improvement to speed up scientific discovery, with Google as a founding investor and cloud partner.

**Q: What is Isomorphic Labs?**
Isomorphic Labs is a Google DeepMind spin-off that uses AI to develop drugs. Demis Hassabis remains its chief executive alongside his new Alphabet role.