Is Demis Hassabis still involved with Google DeepMind?

Demis Hassabis stays at Google DeepMind as Chair and takes an additional role as Chief Scientist of parent company Alphabet. Sundar Pichai says the move frees Hassabis to focus on AGI strategy and Isomorphic Labs rather than day-to-day operations, which pass to former CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu.

Who is now running Google DeepMind day-to-day?

Koray Kavukcuoglu takes over as Senior VP of Google DeepMind and reports directly to Sundar Pichai. Kavukcuoglu joined the lab 13 years ago, started its deep learning team, and led work on WaveNet and DQN. He now oversees Gemini model development, frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams.

What is Discovery Loop and who founded it?

Discovery Loop is a new public benefit corporation founded by Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Quoc Le, and Oriol Vinyals — four Google veterans who together shaped TensorFlow, AlphaFold, Gemini, MapReduce, and BigTable. The company builds AI systems that run thousands of parallel experiments to automate machine-learning research first, then broader science and engineering problems.

Does Google keep any stake in Discovery Loop?

Google is a founding investor in Discovery Loop, its Cloud provider, and a research partner focused on ML systems and infrastructure. The financial terms of Google's stake in Discovery Loop are not disclosed, but the arrangement lets the new company use Google's compute while running as an independent public benefit corporation.

Google · 2026-08-05 · major

Google DeepMind restructure — Hassabis moves to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

Sundar Pichai moves Demis Hassabis from Google DeepMind CEO to Chair and Alphabet Chief Scientist. Jeff Dean leaves Google after 27 years to start Discovery Loop with Oriol Vinyals and Sanjay Ghemawat.

Google reshuffles its AI leadership: Hassabis to Chair, Jeff Dean out after 27 years to launch Discovery Loop.

Quick facts

Old role (Hassabis)	CEO, Google DeepMind
New role (Hassabis)	Chair, Google DeepMind + Alphabet Chief Scientist
New DeepMind SVP	Koray Kavukcuoglu (former CTO, 13 years)
Jeff Dean's next act	Discovery Loop (public benefit corporation)
Co-founders	Sanjay Ghemawat, Quoc Le, Oriol Vinyals
Google's stake	Founding investor + Cloud partner

What is it?

Google DeepMind's biggest leadership change since the 2023 Brain-DeepMind merger. Sundar Pichai promotes Demis Hassabis from CEO of Google DeepMind to Chair of the lab and Chief Scientist of Alphabet. Longtime CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu takes over daily operations as SVP.

How does it work?

Kavukcuoglu now runs Gemini model development, frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams under the new structure. Hassabis focuses on AGI strategy and continues to lead Isomorphic Labs. Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Quoc Le, and Oriol Vinyals leave to found Discovery Loop, a public benefit corporation that automates ML and science experiments using frontier models.

Why does it matter?

The Google DeepMind restructure moves the lab from founder-led operations to an executive team, and pulls four of Google's most senior AI researchers into a new independent lab. Discovery Loop backed by Google Cloud sits alongside Ineffable Intelligence and other ex-DeepMind spinouts, and further fragments frontier AI talent across new labs.

Who is it for?

AI industry watchers, Google Cloud customers, and open-model researchers tracking talent moves at the frontier.

Frequently asked questions

Is Demis Hassabis still involved with Google DeepMind?: Demis Hassabis stays at Google DeepMind as Chair and takes an additional role as Chief Scientist of parent company Alphabet. Sundar Pichai says the move frees Hassabis to focus on AGI strategy and Isomorphic Labs rather than day-to-day operations, which pass to former CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu.
Who is now running Google DeepMind day-to-day?: Koray Kavukcuoglu takes over as Senior VP of Google DeepMind and reports directly to Sundar Pichai. Kavukcuoglu joined the lab 13 years ago, started its deep learning team, and led work on WaveNet and DQN. He now oversees Gemini model development, frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams.
What is Discovery Loop and who founded it?: Discovery Loop is a new public benefit corporation founded by Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Quoc Le, and Oriol Vinyals — four Google veterans who together shaped TensorFlow, AlphaFold, Gemini, MapReduce, and BigTable. The company builds AI systems that run thousands of parallel experiments to automate machine-learning research first, then broader science and engineering problems.
Does Google keep any stake in Discovery Loop?: Google is a founding investor in Discovery Loop, its Cloud provider, and a research partner focused on ML systems and infrastructure. The financial terms of Google's stake in Discovery Loop are not disclosed, but the arrangement lets the new company use Google's compute while running as an independent public benefit corporation.