As of August 5, Koray Kavukcuoglu is senior vice president of Google DeepMind and reports directly to Sundar Pichai - he takes over the Gemini models, frontier research, the Gemini app and the developer teams. Demis Hassabis remains Chairman of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet, and continues to lead Isomorphic Labs.
- On August 5, Koray Kavukcuoglu became senior vice president of Google DeepMind and reports directly to Sundar Pichai - he takes over Gemini, frontier research, the app and the developer teams.
- Demis Hassabis isn't leaving - he becomes Chairman of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet, and continues to lead Isomorphic Labs.
- The same letter from Pichai also announces Jeff Dean's departure - a separate story, with separate consequences.
I read Sundar Pichai's announcement twice before I caught which line was actually the news. It wasn't "Demis Hassabis is leaving." It was who sits in his seat every day while he moves up a floor.
Hassabis isn't disappearing from the scene. He's just stepping away from the wheel day to day. The title stays impressive, the science stays his, Isomorphic Labs stays his. But the daily operational power moves to someone else.
Kavukcuoglu takes over exactly the parts that make the news every day - the Gemini models themselves, frontier research, the app people actually touch, and the teams that build for outside developers - in other words, the operational control panel of Gemini.
The same letter where Hassabis steps down from daily management also announces that Jeff Dean is leaving Google. He went off to do something else - I cover that separately.
Who's actually in charge
Chairman looks impressive on any business card. The control panel for Gemini that people use every day is now in Kavukcuoglu's hands. Where Gemini goes next we'll know from his decisions, not from anyone's business card.