Leadership Shake-Up at Google DeepMind

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence research lab: We have arrived at a pivotal moment in human history. I’ve been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand. It’s critical that we collectively get the next steps right to ensure this all goes well for humanity and we usher in an incredible new age of discovery and wonder. With this backdrop, 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. I will be taking on a new strategic role as Chair of GDM and Chief Scientist of Alphabet, and I’m excited to announce that Koray will be stepping up to lead GDM as SVP of Google DeepMind, in addition to his role as Chief AI Architect of Google. Google published Hassabis’s letter alongside a letter from Sundar Puchai, and all of this is happening alongside four longtime Google leaders leaving to form a new AI-focused company. The headline of Google’s dual-memo announcement was “The Next Chapter of Our AI Momentum”, and Pichai uses the same word in 10 percent of his 30 sentences (emphasis added): And you saw the incredible momentum at earnings across all our businesses, including Search, YouTube, and Cloud. […] Google DeepMind: We are building strong momentum: Flash is in high demand, our Cyber model is live, and Gemma models have surpassed 900M+ downloads. […] With today’s changes we’re going to keep driving our momentum. Onwards! Methinks he doth protest too much. If Google really had the momentum in AI that Pichai is declaring, I suspect Gemini might have suggested he’s overusing the word.  ★