Google is reorganizing the leadership of its artificial intelligence operation as it faces mounting pressure to move faster in the increasingly competitive race against OpenAI and Anthropic. The shakeup puts longtime DeepMind executive Koray Kavukcuoglu in charge of day-to-day operations and all Gemini model development, while DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis moves into a more research-focused leadership role.
Hassabis, who has led DeepMind for more than a decade, is becoming chairman of Google DeepMind and chief scientist of parent company Alphabet. Kavukcuoglu, previously DeepMind’s chief technology officer and Google’s chief AI architect, will serve as senior vice president of Google DeepMind and report directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The shift gives Kavukcuoglu considerably more control over Google’s effort to turn cutting-edge AI research into products capable of competing at the front of the industry.
The restructuring comes amid internal pressure to accelerate Gemini development. Google co-founder Sergey Brin has become increasingly involved in the company’s AI efforts, while some Gemini teams have been moved closer to Google’s broader commercial operations. At the same time, several prominent AI researchers are leaving the company, including longtime Google scientist Jeff Dean, who is departing after nearly three decades to help launch Discovery Loop, a new AI venture focused on scientific discovery.
Google is already showing signs of the faster product cadence the overhaul is intended to produce. On Thursday, the company introduced Gemini 3.7 Flash, which Google describes as its most intelligent workhorse model yet for coding and AI agents. The model is designed for tasks that increasingly matter to businesses adopting generative AI, including software development, complex workflows and autonomous systems capable of completing multistep tasks.
The stakes extend well beyond which company can claim the top-performing model. Google has enormous advantages in Search, Android, YouTube, cloud computing and its own AI infrastructure, giving it ways to put Gemini in front of billions of users. But OpenAI and Anthropic continue to compete aggressively for developers, businesses and consumers. Google’s leadership overhaul suggests the company is increasingly focused on converting its vast AI resources into faster execution — and making sure the next major shift in artificial intelligence doesn’t happen without it.
