Google Puts Demis Hassabis Where the Company Needs Him Most Amid AI Shake-Up

Google's AI shake-up has seen Demis Hassabis step down as DeepMind CEO and take on a new role at Alphabet, its parent company. The move comes amid a critical juncture for Google, which is trailing competitors in coding, a key commercial application of AI. Hassabis' new position as chief scientist will give him a longer-horizon view, allowing him to focus on more ambitious projects beyond chatbots and coding.

Hassabis has long been passionate about AI's potential for scientific breakthroughs, even when they're not immediately profitable. His work on AlphaFold, an AI system that solved the 50-year-old protein-folding problem, won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He has expressed a desire to use AI to 'cure cancer' and has described the current moment as being 'in the foothills of the Singularity', referring to the point at which AI significantly surpasses human capabilities.

The move has been met with mixed reactions from employees, with some seeing it as a demotion and others as a promotion. Google's outgoing chief scientist, Jeff Dean, is departing along with three other top AI researchers to start their own company. This talent drain comes amid delays in the development of Google's next frontier model, Gemini 3.5 Pro.