'With These Changes We're Going To Keep Driving Our Momentum': Sundar Pichai On Google DeepMind Leadership Overhaul
· Free Press Journal
Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has announced a major leadership reshuffle at Google DeepMind, with Demis Hassabis moving into a new Alphabet-wide role, Jeff Dean departing after 27 years at the company, and Koray Kavukcuoglu stepping up to lead the AI unit's day-to-day operations. The changes were detailed in an internal email to employees, later published on Google's official blog.
Demis Hassabis takes on Alphabet-wide role
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Hassabis, who co-founded Google DeepMind, will become Chair of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet, while continuing to lead Isomorphic Labs, the AI drug discovery company he has run alongside DeepMind since 2021. Pichai wrote that Google has made extraordinary progress delivering on its full AI stack, with amazing talent, world-class compute, and products that bring AI to more people than any other company. Explaining the rationale behind Hassabis's new role, Pichai said Demis had described the company as standing in the foothills of the singularity and had been spending a lot of his time engaging externally, adding that the two of them had long been discussing a role that would allow Hassabis to put his full attention on actively shaping the future of AGI. Pichai called it work that is vitally important to Alphabet and humanity, saying he could not imagine a better person than Demis to do it. Hassabis will remain closely connected to Kavukcuoglu and the Google DeepMind teams, advising across models and research.
Koray Kavukcuoglu to lead Google DeepMind as SVP
Kavukcuoglu, who was serving as Chief Technology Officer of Google DeepMind and the company's Chief AI Architect, will now become Senior Vice President of Google DeepMind, reporting directly to Pichai. In this expanded role, he will oversee Gemini model development, Frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams. Pichai noted that Koray has been at DeepMind since its early days, and over his 13 years there, he started the company's deep learning team and led breakthroughs such as WaveNet and DQN. Pichai said he looked forward to seeing Kavukcuoglu lead Google DeepMind into its next chapter. On the state of the AI unit, Pichai pointed to strong momentum, noting that Flash is in high demand, the company's Cyber model is live, and Gemma models have surpassed 900 million downloads.
Jeff Dean exits after 27 years to launch new venture
After what Pichai described as an incredible 27 year run, Jeff Dean is leaving Google to try something new. Dean and Google Senior Fellow Sanjay Ghemawat are launching an independent public benefit corporation aimed at accelerating discoveries in machine learning, science and engineering. Pichai credited the two with helping drive some of the most significant technology transitions at Google, from its early search infrastructure to the neural networks that helped create the modern AI era. On a personal note, Pichai said it had been a privilege to work alongside Jeff and Sanjay and wished them all the best. Google will continue to work with the new venture as a founding investor and cloud partner, and collaborate on a research framework for machine learning systems and related infrastructure advances.
Closing the email, Pichai struck an upbeat tone about the road ahead, writing that Google is at a dynamic moment with so much opportunity ahead, and that with today's changes the company is going to keep driving its momentum.
Here is Pichai's message to Google employees:
We’ve made extraordinary progress to deliver on our full AI stack. We’ve got amazing talent, world-class compute, and products that bring AI to more people than any other company. And you saw the incredible momentum at earnings across all our businesses, including Search, YouTube, and Cloud. Our Gemini models are in high demand among developers and businesses, and the Gemini app reached 950M+ monthly users. Meanwhile, our AI research continues to drive field-defining breakthroughs (like last week’s Gemini Robotics advances).
We have to accelerate all this work and stay focused on the AI frontier. At the same time, there’s never been a more important moment to shape the future of AGI and science. Today Demis, Koray and I are sharing a few changes to our Google DeepMind teams that will enable us to do both.
AGI and science: Demis has described us as standing in the foothills of the singularity, and has been spending a lot of his time engaging externally. He and I have been long discussing a role that allows him to put his full attention on actively shaping the future of AGI. It’s work that is vitally important to Alphabet and humanity, and I can’t imagine a better person than Demis to do it. So, moving forward, Demis will become the Chair of GDM and Chief Scientist of Alphabet, while continuing to lead Isomorphic Labs. He’ll remain closely connected to Koray, Josh, and our GDM teams, advising across models and research. I’m so excited for Demis — this is truly his life’s work and purpose. You can read Demis’s note to GDM below.
Google DeepMind: We are building strong momentum: Flash is in high demand, our Cyber model is live, and Gemma models have surpassed 900M+ downloads. We are committed to being at the frontier, and are super focused on the areas where we need to improve. I’m really excited for our upcoming model releases and the progress we’re seeing. We have to continue to move fast and with clear purpose here. Koray, the current Chief Technology Officer of GDM and our Chief AI Architect, will step up as SVP of Google DeepMind, reporting to me. He will oversee Gemini model development, Frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams. Koray has been at DeepMind since its early days, and over his 13 years there, he has started our deep learning team and led the way on breakthroughs like WaveNet and DQN. I look forward to seeing him lead GDM into this next chapter.
Lastly, after an incredible 27-year run, Jeff Dean is at a moment where he wants to try something new, and we’re excited to support him in that. Jeff and Google Senior Fellow Sanjay Ghemawat are launching an independent public benefit corporation to accelerate discoveries in ML, science, and engineering. Jeff and Sanjay helped to drive some of the most significant technology transitions, from our early search infrastructure to the neural networks that helped create the modern AI era. On a personal note, it’s been a privilege to work alongside Jeff and Sanjay, and I wish them all the best! We’ll continue to work with them as a founding investor and Cloud partner, and collaborate on a research framework for ML systems and related infrastructure advances.
We are at a dynamic moment with so much opportunity ahead. With today's changes we're going to keep driving our momentum. Onwards!
-Sundar