Demis Hassabis has stepped down as CEO of Google DeepMind, becoming chairman and chief scientist at Alphabet. Koray Kavukcuoglu, a LeCun protégé and key contributor to DQN and AlphaGo, will take over as SVP, overseeing daily operations and the Gemini team. The leadership change has sparked speculation about Google's AI strategy.
SynthePulse Insight · AI deep reading
Version 1 · 1 source
Google DeepMind undergoes major leadership change: Hassabis steps down as CEO to become chairman, with Koray Kavukcuoglu taking over as senior vice president. This LeCun protégé and key figure behind DQN and WaveNet faces the dual pressures of talent attrition and Gemini delays. Can he lead Google out of its predicament?
In August 2026, Google DeepMind underwent a major leadership reshuffle: Hassabis stepped down as CEO to become DeepMind chairman and Alphabet's chief scientist; Koray Kavukcuoglu was promoted to senior vice president of Google DeepMind, reporting directly to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, taking over daily operations, AI research, and the Gemini team. Following the announcement, Google's stock plummeted over 5%, erasing trillions in market value.
This change is seen externally as a 'tsunami' in Google AI, especially against the backdrop of Gemini 3.5 Pro still showing 'Coming soon.' Hassabis announced his departure on X, and Koray's succession is viewed as a critical step in a 'headwind situation.'
Koray Kavukcuoglu, Turkish, born in 1980, initially studied aerospace engineering before shifting to computer science. He studied under Yann LeCun, one of the deep learning 'big three,' at New York University, with a doctoral thesis on multi-layer visual feature learning. He joined DeepMind in 2012, founded the deep learning team, and led the DQN project—an AI system demonstrated in 2013 that could learn to play Atari games autonomously, with the related paper published in Nature in 2015. Koray, Volodymyr Mnih, and David Silver contributed equally.
He also participated in the WaveNet project, which later entered products like Google Assistant. Koray transitioned from frontline research to management, serving as VP of research, then CTO, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2022, cited for technical knowledge, research leadership, and ability to manage large research organizations. According to The Information, he manages the ~1,000-person Gemini project, coordinating the former DeepMind and Google Brain teams. Sergey Brin directly contacts him on issues like chip allocation, describing him as an 'indispensable firefighter.'
In June 2025, Google created the new position of 'Chief AI Architect' for him; he continued as CTO and reported directly to Pichai, moving from London to California with the task of accelerating Gemini's integration into product lines. Over the past year, Hassabis gradually handed over daily Gemini management to Koray, and this adjustment formalizes existing responsibilities.
Google is facing severe talent attrition. Legendary engineer Jeff Dean announced his departure to found Discovery Loop, accompanied by Sanjay Ghemawat; Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le have also left. Earlier, AlphaGo core member David Silver founded Ineffable Intelligence, Transformer author Noam Shazeer moved to OpenAI, and AlphaFold lead John Jumper has also departed. These departures span critical areas including infrastructure, model architecture, and reinforcement learning.
On the product front, Gemini 3.5 Pro was originally planned for a May release of Flash, with Pro expected the following month, but as of August it still shows 'Coming soon,' with repeated delays. Amid competition from OpenAI and Anthropic, Google needs to advance its flagship model, bolster agent and coding capabilities, while balancing speed, cost, and safety.
Hassabis has not fully exited; he remains chairman and chief scientist. A dual structure may emerge with 'Hassabis setting long-term direction, Koray handling daily execution,' but it remains to be seen who has the final say in conflicts.
Koray and Hassabis have contrasting styles: Hassabis is a charismatic leader, adept at defining long-term goals and rallying talent, bringing global attention to AlphaGo and AlphaFold; Koray is more pragmatic and low-key, skilled at understanding technology, allocating resources, and managing complex organizations to get models into products. In Google's current situation, the latter may be more critical.
Koray's succession also faces skepticism: Can he retain remaining talent? Can he deliver Gemini on time? There is speculation that Jeff Dean was sidelined and the Google Brain team purged, but these are conjectures.
Koray's succession is a key bet by Google in the AI race. He possesses deep technical background and project management experience, but faces dual pressures of talent attrition and product delays. Whether he can steer Gemini out of headwinds will determine Google AI's future.
As the article states, 'Turbulent times create heroes.' The problems Koray must solve are difficult, but the opportunities are great. Whether he can become Google's 'chosen one' remains to be seen.
This article is based on reports from QbitAI, which include detailed descriptions of Koray's background. Some information (such as LeCun's recruitment attempt and managing a 1,000-person team) comes from secondary sources like The Wall Street Journal and The Information, not confirmed by Google. Stock drop and market value loss figures come from reports but lack specific numbers. Gemini 3.5 Pro's delay status is based on the official website but does not specify reasons.
Koray Kavukcuoglu takes over as senior vice president of Google DeepMind, facing severe challenges of talent attrition and Gemini delays. His technical background and project management skills are assets, but whether he can turn the tide remains uncertain. Google's future depends on his ability to balance Hassabis's long-term vision with short-term product goals.
Primary report
Primary source