Inside Google’s Executive Changes Behind Its Major AI Reshuffle

Google is making significant leadership and organizational changes within its AI division as it works to strengthen its position in the race to develop leading AI models.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has recently encouraged key AI employees to focus heavily on the company’s Gemini model and accelerate efforts to compete with rivals. According to people familiar with his comments, Brin emphasized the need for Google DeepMind to move faster as competitors advanced their own AI systems.

Google’s Gemini model had briefly moved ahead of competing systems last November, but subsequent developments from Anthropic and OpenAI again put pressure on Google to catch up. Internal testing also contributed to a delay of two months for a new flagship Gemini version, with coding among the areas where the model was reportedly still behind competitors.

On August 5, Google announced a major leadership restructuring at Google DeepMind. Demis Hassabis moved from leading the division to becoming its chair, while his deputy, Koray Kavukcuoglu, took over greater leadership responsibilities. At the same time, Gemini’s two original technical co-leads, Jeff Dean and Oriol Vinyals, left to start a new company.

The restructuring reflects Google’s broader effort to integrate AI more closely with its commercial operations. Some teams are also being moved from DeepMind into Google’s corporate structure, raising concerns among employees about the research lab’s previous level of independence.

Kavukcuoglu had already taken on an expanded role in 2025 when Google CEO Sundar Pichai appointed him as the company’s chief AI architect. His responsibilities included integrating Gemini across Google’s products. Sources told Reuters that his influence over Gemini’s development increased as Hassabis became less involved in managing the model.

During an internal meeting following the restructuring announcement, Hassabis and Kavukcuoglu sought to reassure employees that the lab’s daily work would continue. Kavukcuoglu would remain responsible for Gemini, while Hassabis would focus more on broader questions surrounding AI, science and society.

The meeting also highlighted organizational changes, including the transfer of several nontechnical teams from DeepMind into Google’s corporate reporting structure. The changes reinforced the company’s focus on improving Gemini’s position in the AI competition.

Brin has also become more involved informally in AI development. Although he no longer has an executive position, he has encouraged employees to work toward catching up with the leading AI models and has pushed for resources to be directed toward areas such as recursive self-improvement.

Google’s previous difficulties have been linked to challenges including limited computing capacity, disagreements among project leaders and slower model releases. These issues have affected the allocation of resources to important areas such as coding.

Kavukcuoglu has increasingly become a central figure in Google’s AI strategy. After moving from London to Mountain View, he reported directly to Pichai and developed closer links with other parts of Google, including Google Cloud.

Following the latest restructuring, Kavukcuoglu will have final authority over major decisions at DeepMind. The departures of several senior figures have also created uncertainty around the future of teams and research projects that had previously operated with greater independence from Gemini’s commercial priorities.