Google tightens grip on London AI lab as British founder steps back
Google tightens grip on London AI lab as British founder steps back
James TitcombWed, August 5, 2026 at 6:46 PM UTC
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Sir Demis Hassabis founded DeepMind, which Google bought for £400m four years later - Alastair Grant/AP
Sir Demis Hassabis is stepping down as head of Google’s British AI lab DeepMind to be replaced by a US-based executive.
The tech entrepreneur, who is based in London, will become DeepMind’s chairman as part of a broader shake-up of Google’s AI leadership announced on Wednesday.
Google’s Koray Kavukcuoglu will take over from Sir Demis and run the lab’s day-to-day operations.
The move, which sent shares in Google-owner Alphabet down 5.5pc, is likely to mean the US tech giant tightening its grip on DeepMind, which was founded in London in 2010.
Sir Demis had at times fought to maintain the company’s independence and keep it in London since selling to Google in 2014.
Mr Kavukcuoglu, formerly DeepMind’s chief technology officer, moved from London to the US last year when he was made Google’s chief AI architect.
Google did not say whether he would return to London or run the lab from California.
It comes as Google seeks to catch up to OpenAI and Anthropic in the race to develop advanced AI models.
Its Gemini model has been seen as falling behind ChatGPT and Claude in recent months. The company has not released a major update to its Gemini models in several months.
Sir Demis founded DeepMind and Google bought the company for around £400m four years later. It has since become central to the company’s AI efforts.
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Google said his new role “allows him to put his full attention on actively shaping the future of AGI”, referring to artificial general intelligence, an advanced AI that surpasses human intelligence.
Sir Demis will also become chief scientist at Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and continue to run Isomorphic Labs, his separate company that aims to use AI to discover new pharmaceuticals.
“We have arrived at a pivotal moment in human history. I’ve been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand,” Sir Demis said in a note to DeepMind staff.
“With this backdrop, I’ve decided that now is the right time for me to hand over my day-to-day operational responsibilities at GDM [Google DeepMind], so that I have the time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come to the best of my ability.”
Mr Kavukcuoglu’s title will be “senior vice president of Google DeepMind”, rather than Sir Demis’s chief executive role.
The Turkish-born executive joined DeepMind as a research scientist in 2012, before the Google sale, and worked at the lab for 13 years before taking a Google role.
He will report to Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive.
Sir Demis insisted on DeepMind staying in London when the company was sold to Google in 2014 and had attempted to maintain the lab’s independence.
In 2023 it was renamed Google DeepMind as part of a merger of Google’s competing AI initiatives.
Mr Pichai announced that Jeff Dean, Google’s chief scientist and one of its earliest employees, would be leaving to launch an AI start-up.
Source: “AOL Money”
