Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has announced a significant restructuring of the senior leadership within its artificial intelligence division, Google DeepMind. CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed the changes in a statement posted on X this Wednesday, revealing that Turkish engineer Koray Kavukcuoglu has been appointed as the division’s new senior vice president.
Kavukcuoglu previously served as the chief technology officer and chief AI architect for the division. In his new capacity, he will oversee model development, cutting-edge AI research, the Gemini platform, and the company's developer teams. Highlighting his extensive tenure, Pichai noted that Kavukcuoglu has spent 13 years at Google DeepMind. He was credited with establishing the firm's deep learning team and playing a pivotal role in major breakthroughs, including WaveNet and the Deep Q-Network (DQN). “GDM is in great hands!” Pichai remarked.
Alongside this promotion, Demis Hassabis, a founder of Google DeepMind, will transition into new roles, serving as the chair of the division's board and as Alphabet's chief scientist. Hassabis will also continue to lead Isomorphic Labs. According to Pichai, Hassabis will dedicate his focus to shaping the future of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and advancing scientific discovery, areas that Alphabet considers vital to both the company and humanity at large.
