Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has announced a major leadership shake-up within its artificial intelligence (AI) division as the company seeks to strengthen its position in the rapidly evolving AI industry.
The restructuring sees Nobel Prize-winning AI pioneer Demis Hassabis step down from his role as Chief Executive Officer of Google DeepMind to become Alphabet’s first Chief Scientist, where he will focus on advancing research into artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said Hassabis would concentrate on shaping the future of AGI, describing the work as critical to both the company and society.
Google DeepMind’s Chief Technology Officer, Koray Kavukcuoglu, will assume responsibility for the unit’s day-to-day operations as Senior Vice-President while retaining his role as Alphabet’s Chief AI Architect.
READ ALSO:Â Google to Launch NotebookLM Mobile App on 20 May
The leadership changes come as Google faces mounting pressure from rivals OpenAI and Anthropic, following delays in the release of its latest Gemini AI model and the departure of several senior AI researchers.
Among those leaving the company are veteran engineer Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le, who have launched a new public benefit start-up, Discovery Loop, to focus on artificial intelligence, scientific research and engineering breakthroughs.
Following the announcement, Alphabet shares fell by four per cent amid investor concerns over the company’s AI strategy.
Despite the changes, Hassabis expressed confidence in Google’s AI progress, highlighting continued development of the next-generation Gemini model and reaffirming his commitment to using artificial intelligence to advance healthcare, including research into treatments for diseases such as cancer.
