Google Reshuffles DeepMind Leadership: Demis Hassabis Becomes Alphabet's Chief Scientist

On August 6, 2026, Google announced a major shake-up of DeepMind's leadership. Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, moves into the roles of chairman of the lab and chief scientist of Alphabet. Koray Kavukcuoglu, previously DeepMind's CTO, takes over day-to-day management of Google's largest AI division as senior vice president.

Who now runs Google DeepMind

Koray Kavukcuoglu, until now DeepMind's chief technology officer, is promoted to senior vice president (SVP) of Google DeepMind and will report directly to CEO Sundar Pichai. Kavukcuoglu also keeps his current role as Google's chief AI architect, which makes him a key figure in the technology strategy of the entire company.

Hassabis is not leaving Google. He becomes chairman of Google DeepMind and chief scientist of Alphabet, and continues to lead Isomorphic Labs, the Alphabet subsidiary that applies AI to the development of new drugs. The new role gives him a strategic and scientific voice without the operational burden of running the lab day to day.

Key details of the restructuring:

• Demis Hassabis — chairman of Google DeepMind and chief scientist of Alphabet (continues to lead Isomorphic Labs)
• Koray Kavukcuoglu — SVP of Google DeepMind and Google's chief AI architect, reporting directly to Sundar Pichai
• The announcement was made on August 6, 2026 on Google's official blog

Why Hassabis is moving to a scientific role

Hassabis is one of the creators of AlphaFold, a deep learning system that predicts the three-dimensional structures of proteins with atomic accuracy. In 2024, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with colleague John Jumper for this breakthrough, which transformed structural biology. Isomorphic Labs, founded in 2021, builds applied AI solutions for the pharmaceutical industry on top of AlphaFold.

In announcing the changes, Pichai again named medicine as a top priority:

"I have always believed that the most important application of AI is improving people's lives..." —

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, in the company's official blog.

Hassabis's move into the chief scientist role makes AI in medicine a corporate priority of Alphabet, rather than just one of DeepMind's focus areas. According to Google, he will shape the scientific direction for the company's entire portfolio of AI projects.

What this means

The reorganization separates two levels of responsibility. Kavukcuoglu runs DeepMind as Google's engineering and product division, while Hassabis is responsible for the scientific horizon of Alphabet as a whole. It is a classic "visionary + operator" arrangement: the company keeps both its competitive speed in products and its long-term research focus. For AI-race watchers, it is a signal that Google is not just scaling up models, but also restructuring its organization for the next decade.

Frequently asked questions

What is Isomorphic Labs?

Isomorphic Labs is an Alphabet subsidiary created in 2021 under Hassabis's leadership. The lab applies AI to the search for new drug molecules: its models predict how compounds interact with target proteins, cutting the time and cost of the early stages of drug development.

Who is Koray Kavukcuoglu?

Koray Kavukcuoglu is one of the leading executives at Google DeepMind and a specialist in deep learning. Before his appointment as SVP, he served as DeepMind's chief technology officer and Google's chief AI architect. According to Google, he now reports directly to CEO Sundar Pichai and keeps his role as chief AI architect of the entire company.