Google co-founder’s a message for DeepMind staff after Demis Hassabis exits as CEO
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been urging Google DeepMind staff to go all in on Gemini and catch up to the AI frontier, following a sweeping leadership overhaul that saw Demis Hassabis step aside as CEO. Koray Kavukcuoglu now runs day-to-day operations from Mountain View, with final say on major decisions. The reshuffle follows Gemini release delays, coding benchmark gaps against Anthropic…
A decade after DeepMind's sale to Google, co-founder Sergey Brin continues to influence the company's artificial intelligence research, pushing staff to focus on Gemini and close the gap with rivals. In April, Brin urged Google DeepMind to accelerate its pace, following Anthropic's unveiling of its Claude Mythos model. Following Hassabis' exit from his CEO role, Google announced an overhaul of its AI division on August 5, with Hassabis stepping down to become chair and taking on the position of Alphabet chief scientist.
His deputy, Koray Kavukcuoglu, took over daily leadership of the division. Despite the changes, engineers reported that Gemini 3.5 Pro had missed three release deadlines, with the new version delayed by two months after internal testing revealed it still lagged behind competitors in coding. DeepMind's independence has diminished over the years, and Hassabis' exit further reduced its autonomy.
During an all-hands meeting on August 6, Hassabis and Kavukcuoglu reassured employees that day-to-day operations would remain unchanged, though several non-technical teams were moved into Google's corporate reporting structure. The restructuring was seen as a shift of AI control from London to Silicon Valley, with Kavukcuoglu now leading Gemini development from a desk beside Brin.
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