Google's AI Unit Undergoes Leadership Shake-Up Amid Key Departures

Google's AI division has undergone significant changes, including the departure of four key employees and a leadership shake-up at DeepMind. Demis Hassabis, CEO and co-founder of DeepMind, is stepping aside from his role as leader of the AI unit to become chief scientist of Alphabet. Hassabis will remain as chair of DeepMind and focus on longer-term projects, particularly developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) that could improve human health.

In a memo, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Hassabis would have more 'time and space' for 'big picture' projects, reiterating his belief in the importance of AGI. Hassabis has recently discussed work on developing AGI and emphasized its potential to cure diseases like cancer.

Jeff Dean, who led AI efforts at Google for nearly three decades, is leaving the company with two colleagues to form a machine learning (ML) startup called Discovery Loop. The trio will aim to automate scientific experiments.