Demis Hassabis steps down as Google DeepMind CEO as Alphabet takes over

In short: Demis Hassabis is stepping down as CEO of Google DeepMind and moving into new roles at Alphabet, as DeepMind is brought closer into Google.

What happened

Demis Hassabis, the founder and chief executive of Google DeepMind, is stepping down from the day to day running of the AI lab. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, said Hassabis will become chair and also take on a new job as Alphabet’s chief scientist.

DeepMind, which is based in London, will now be led by Koray Kavukcuoglu as senior vice-president of Google DeepMind. Hassabis described the change to staff as a move to focus on the “big picture” and to help guide work toward “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI (a type of AI that can handle many different tasks at a human level, like a very capable all purpose assistant).

Another major change is that Jeff Dean, DeepMind’s chief scientist and a longtime Google employee, is leaving the group to start his own company. Google will support that new start-up.

The Financial Times reported that Google’s stock fell 5 percent after the announcement.

Why it matters

DeepMind is one of the best known AI research groups, and it has influenced products and research across Google. These leadership moves suggest DeepMind will be folded further into Google’s wider business, which could affect what it works on and how quickly its work shows up in everyday tools. For regular people, that can shape the AI features you see in Google services, and also how much attention the company puts on safety and oversight as AI systems get more capable.

Source: Financial Times