Google DeepMind Loses Its CEO and Chief Scientist on the Same Day

Google DeepMind lost both its CEO and its chief scientist on the same day. Demis Hassabis is moving to the role of Chief Scientist for all of Alphabet — to focus on AGI and Isomorphic Labs — while Jeff Dean, after 27 years at Google, is founding Discovery Loop, a science automation startup backed by Khosla, Kleiner Perkins, and Alphabet itself. Koray Kavukcuoglu, the lab's former CTO, becomes the new head of DeepMind.

The simultaneous departure of two DeepMind architects is a rare signal: the founders sense that the era of building the foundation is drawing to a close. Hassabis says directly that AGI is "close" — and both are choosing to meet that moment outside the corporate structure. The lab transitions into a scaling phase under Google's stewardship.