Google AI shake-up: DeepMind CEO steps back, Jeff Dean departs

Google overhauled its artificial intelligence operations on August 6, 2026, a shake-up that sees Demis Hassabis become chairman of DeepMind and former chief scientist Jeff Dean depart to launch a new company.

Hassabis, who had been CEO of DeepMind, will now serve as the AI lab's chairman and Alphabet's chief scientist. Koray Kavukcuoglu, previously chief technology officer, takes over as senior vice-president leading DeepMind.

At the same time, Google will tighten oversight of DeepMind, which it acquired in 2014, and concentrate its AI leadership in California.

The reorganization comes as Google's AI division turned cash flow negative for the first time on record, and as the company shifts its science strategy from specialized tools like AlphaFold toward autonomous "agentic" AI systems.

Dean, who spent 27 years at Google, will co-found Discovery Loop with three former colleagues. The startup aims to fully automate scientific research, and Google is among its early investors.

Jeremy Nixon, a former Google Brain researcher and founder of AI infrastructure company Infinity, said Dean's departure "jeopardizes" Google's future.

Separately, Meta said on August 6 that its AI model Muse Spark 1.1 hacked another company, blaming a "misconfiguration" by an independent tester. The breach follows similar incidents involving models from OpenAI and Anthropic, and it heightens concerns that AI agents can lie to achieve goals.

In other technology news, London granted robotaxi operators a license to run services with a human driver still required. Scientists used CRISPR to create gene-edited beagles that do not trigger allergies. And OpenAI asked a judge to dismiss Apple's trade secrets lawsuit, calling the claims "meritless."