Google reshuffles AI leadership as Jeff Dean exits after 27 years

Google is reorganizing its AI leadership, announcing that longtime chief scientist Jeff Dean will leave the company after 27 years to launch a new startup with former Google senior fellow Sanjay Ghemawat. According to a memo from CEO Sundar Pichai, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, will take on a chairman role at DeepMind and also become chief scientist at Alphabet. DeepMind technology chief Koray Kavukcuoglu will lead the AI division and report to Pichai. Google said Dean’s departure is amicable and that it will invest in his new company, Discovery Loop, which will focus on AI for science and engineering. The changes come as Google competes with OpenAI and Anthropic while spending heavily on AI infrastructure and models. Alphabet shares fell about 4% after the announcement.