Demis Hassabis is stepping down as CEO of Google DeepMind — but he's staying close to home. Google announced that Hassabis will become chairman of the lab and take on a new role as chief scientist at Alphabet, where he'll steer the parent company's long-term AI research strategy. He'll also continue to lead Isomorphic Labs, Alphabet's AI-driven drug discovery arm.
Meanwhile, Google DeepMind CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu will handle the team's day-to-day operations. The leadership shuffle comes as longtime Google AI figure Jeff Dean departs to start a new venture. Google has not yet named a permanent replacement for the top job at DeepMind.