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Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, newly named Alphabet's Chief Scientist and Chairman of DeepMind. / Reuters-Yonhap

Google's Alphabet has moved to overhaul its leadership as key AI figures leave the company in succession, major outlets including Reuters and Bloomberg reported on the 5th (local time).

According to the reports, Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, who had effectively shaped Google's AI strategy, is wrapping up his 27-year career at the company to launch a new startup called "Discovery Loop" along with Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals, and Quoc Le.

The new company will operate as a public-benefit entity focused on automating machine learning, science, and engineering, with Google collaborating through investment and cloud resource support.

Amid this wave of departures, Google named Nobel laureate Demis Hassabis, formerly CEO of Alphabet subsidiary DeepMind, as Alphabet's Chief Scientist and Chairman of DeepMind. He is expected to focus on research into the societal impact and strategy surrounding artificial general intelligence (AGI).

In an internal message, Hassabis said, "The most important application of AI is improving human health," stressing that using AI to help treat diseases like cancer is the best way to prove the technology's value. He also plans to invest in overseeing Isomorphic Labs, a drug discovery company spun out of DeepMind.

Day-to-day operations at DeepMind will now be handled by Chief Technology Officer Koray Kavukcuoglu, who will take on the CEO title. Reuters interpreted the move as reflecting Google's intent to shift its focus from research toward commercialization.

The leadership shakeup comes at a critical moment, as Google faces growing concern over delays in releasing its latest AI model, Gemini, and falling behind rivals OpenAI and Anthropic — marking the biggest organizational overhaul since Google merged its research teams into DeepMind in 2023.

Indeed, following the departures of Gemini co-developer Noam Shazeer and Nobel co-laureate John Jumper to OpenAI and Anthropic, respectively, in June, Jeff Dean's exit has prompted some within Google to describe the moment as "earthquake-like."

Investors have voiced concern that the departures could shake Google's ability to innovate and execute. Brian Mulberry, senior market strategist at U.S. asset manager Zacks Investment Management, said, "Google has a deep talent pool, but losing four key people will be a significant blow for the time being."

                                                                                                             Park Jin-sook