Why Did Google Change Who Runs DeepMind?

Sundar Pichai says Google changed who runs frontier models at DeepMind because that work has become an all-consuming job of its own. It is moving, it is picking up pace, and it runs from data to compute to the algorithms to the teams and the model agents.

Jeff Dean spent 27 years at Google. Sundar Pichai says he is proud of that work, Jeff Dean wanted to go build something he was excited about with a set of people, and Google is excited to see what he does with Discovery Loop.

Demis Hassabis has been thinking about this frontier moment for a long time. Sundar Pichai says Demis Hassabis wants more of his time on getting through it safely and on applying AI to other problems, the work behind AlphaFold and Isomorphic, including medicine and drug discovery. Demis Hassabis stays chair of DeepMind and is also spending more time on AI security, science, and healthcare. Someone who has been at DeepMind for well over a decade is stepping up to run frontier model development.