Google AI leader leaves, Demis Hassabis to be chair in seismic moves

Alphabet Inc.'s Google is losing prominent AI veterans in a major leadership overhaul, with shares falling as much as 5.5%. Demis Hassabis, head of Google DeepMind, will become chairman, while Jeff Dean is departing to launch a startup, taking several employees with him. Koray Kavukcuoglu, Google's Chief AI Architect, will take over many of Hassabis's responsibilities as senior vice president, reporting to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.

Getting your Trinity Audio //trinityaudio.ai player ready... By Shirin Ghaffary and Mark Bergen, Bloomberg Alphabet Inc.’s Google /tag/google/ is losing some of its most prominent AI veterans in a seismic overhaul that is casting doubt over leadership of a critical area of growth right as competition intensifies. Alphabet shares fell as much as 5.5% on the news. Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind, is moving to a chairman role at the lab. Jeff Dean, a longtime Google employee central to the development of its AI strategy, is meanwhile departing the company to launch a startup, taking several high-profile employees with him. Koray Kavukcuoglu, Google’s Chief AI Architect and a longtime Hassabis deputy, will be taking over many of Hassabis’s responsibilities as senior vice president and report to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, the company announced on Wednesday in a blog post. Hassabis co-founded DeepMind, a pioneering artificial intelligence research lab that sold to Google in 2014. He has since become a leading figure in the development of AI technology. “I’ve decided that now is the right time for me to hand over my day-to-day operational responsibilities at GDM, so that I have the time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come to the best of my ability,” Hassabis said in a statement. Shares of Alphabet were trading at $362.31 at 12:08 p.m. in New York. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com https://www.bloomberg.com ©2026 Bloomberg L.P.