Google parent Alphabet names Demis Hassabis chief scientist

Google parent Alphabet has named Demis Hassabis, Google's head of AI, as Alphabet chief scientist and chair of DeepMind as part of a leadership reshuffle at its AI division.

Alphabet announced the changes on Wednesday. Hassabis said the new roles would let him focus on long-term strategy and scientific work, including Isomorphic Labs, the AI-powered drug discovery company that spun out of DeepMind in 2021.

DeepMind chief technology officer and chief AI architect Koray Kavukcuoglu will become the division's senior vice president and oversee operations, including development of Google's Gemini models and products.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai also said longtime engineer Jeff Dean is leaving the company after nearly three decades to "try something new".

Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010. Google bought the research lab four years later, and Hassabis won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2024. The changes come as Google competes with other AI developers, including Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, DeepSeek and Moonshot.