Demis Hassabis Named Alphabet Chief Scientist

Sundar Pichai reshuffled the top of Google's AI operation on Wednesday, moving Demis Hassabis out of his current role and into two new ones. Hassabis will become chair of Google DeepMind and Alphabet's chief scientist, while keeping his post running Isomorphic Labs, the Alphabet subsidiary trying to use AI to develop new drugs. Koray Kavukcuoglu, previously DeepMind's CTO, takes over as Google's SVP of DeepMind and will report directly to Pichai. He's also keeping his title as Google's chief AI architect, so the company now has two people carrying "chief" titles in overlapping AI territory.

The changes don't stop there. Jeff Dean, Google's 30th employee and until now chief scientist of Google DeepMind, is leaving the company entirely. He's taking Google Fellow Sanjay Ghemawat with him to start a new AI-focused public benefit corporation called Discovery Loop.

Two decades of institutional memory walking out the door at once is not a small thing for a company that has spent years trying to consolidate its AI research under one roof. Hassabis addressed the move in a message to staff, laying out why he's stepping back from the day-to-day.