# Demis Hassabis Steps Down as Google DeepMind CEO

> Demis Hassabis, the DeepMind co-founder and 2024 Nobel laureate, is stepping back from running Google DeepMind day to day, shifting to a chairman and chief scientist role. Koray Kavukcuoglu, the lab's former CTO, takes over operations as a senior vice president reporting directly to Sundar Pichai, and Hassabis stays on as chairman of the drug-discovery spinout Isomorphic Labs. Officially this formalizes a pivot Hassabis has been signaling for a while, from managing a large operation toward strategy and the scientific applications he clearly cares most about. He recently used a Substack post to warn, in unusually blunt terms, about near-term AI risks including nuclear and biological threats as systems approach general intelligence. For one of the field's marquee labs, a leadership change at the top is always worth noting, both for what it says about how Google is organizing its AI bets and for what it frees Hassabis to focus on. His science-first instincts, and his safety warnings, will now carry a different kind of weight.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: Fortune · Published Saturday, August 15, 2026_

## Wortins' read

Demis Hassabis, the DeepMind co-founder and 2024 Nobel laureate, is stepping back from running Google DeepMind day to day, shifting to a chairman and chief scientist role. Koray Kavukcuoglu, the lab's former CTO, takes over operations as a senior vice president reporting directly to Sundar Pichai, and Hassabis stays on as chairman of the drug-discovery spinout Isomorphic Labs. Officially this formalizes a pivot Hassabis has been signaling for a while, from managing a large operation toward strategy and the scientific applications he clearly cares most about. He recently used a Substack post to warn, in unusually blunt terms, about near-term AI risks including nuclear and biological threats as systems approach general intelligence. For one of the field's marquee labs, a leadership change at the top is always worth noting, both for what it says about how Google is organizing its AI bets and for what it frees Hassabis to focus on. His science-first instincts, and his safety warnings, will now carry a different kind of weight.

## Source

[Read the full story at Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/08/05/demis-hassabis-steps-down-google-deepmind-ai-shakeup/)

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