Hassabis gives up the DeepMind CEO title as Jeff Dean exits Google after 27 years
Demis Hassabis is giving up the DeepMind CEO title to become unit chairman and Alphabet chief scientist, with CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu taking over daily operations and Gemini model development, reporting to Sundar Pichai. Jeff Dean is leaving after 27 years to cofound Discovery Loop, an Alphabet-backed public benefit corporation, alongside Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals, and Quoc Le. Alphabet shares fell about 5%: the reshuffle removes Google's two most senior research names from the org chart while Gemini 3.5 Pro sits months past its June launch target.
Source: fortune.com ↗
After an incredible 27-year run, Jeff Dean is at a moment where he wants to try something new, and we're excited to support him in that.
Sundar Pichai, Google CEO
Why this matters
- → Google loses two of its most senior research leaders simultaneously, destabilizing AI leadership.
- → Gemini 3.5 Pro already months late; reshuffle adds execution risk to catch up.
- → Hassabis pivots to AGI strategy while day-to-day model work transfers to non-CEO.
Google's research exodus