Google co-founder Sergey Brin is taking the reins once again to lead Google's artificial intelligence development and product commercialization business.

Demis Hassabis, the former CEO of Google DeepMind who has led AI development until now, is stepping back from front-line management to oversee long-term research.

The Financial Times (FT) reported on August 7, citing internal sources, that Google has implemented a fundamental reshuffle of its AI leadership to accelerate the monetization of Gemini and close the gap with competitors.

This is interpreted as a shift in leadership for Google's AI business from Hassabis, who had a strong research-oriented inclination, to Brin, who emphasizes commercialization and business operations.

According to the newspaper, Hassabis recently handed over the actual management of DeepMind, the AI research and development company he founded, to Koray Kavukcuoglu, Senior Vice President (SVP), and assumed the role of Chairman of DeepMind.

At the same time, Hassabis was appointed Chief Scientist of Alphabet, Google's parent company, where he will lead long-term AI research strategies.

Command over research and development (R&D) issues and commercialization has been handed over to Brin.

Brin, who co-founded Google with Larry Page, is a leader who spearheaded Google's early AI development by supporting the launch of Google Brain, the company's first AI research organization, in 2011 and securing the acquisition of DeepMind, a London-based AI startup, in 2014.

Brin stepped back from day-to-day operations in 2023 when then-DeepMind CEO Hassabis took charge of Google's AI R&D. However, as a sense of crisis grew that Google was falling behind in the AI race against OpenAI and Anthropic, Brin rapidly emerged as a candidate for the next AI chief.

Google succeeded in developing the high-performance AI model "Gemini 3" under Hassabis's leadership last November, garnering widespread attention. However, the Financial Times reported that concerns over deteriorating profitability had been mounting among management and the board of directors due to a lack of notable achievements in enterprise AI services and coding assistants, which have emerged as major revenue streams in the AI industry.

According to sources, Hassabis was relatively indifferent to such business issues, sparking considerable backlash from Google's senior executives.

For instance, Hassabis made DeepMind's protein prediction AI, AlphaFold, freely available to the scientific community. This decision led to a series of complaints within Google that despite massive R&D investments, there was virtually no financial return.

Under these circumstances, Brin's internal presence was bound to grow.

Having stepped away from hands-on operations in recent years, he has continued to be involved in major decisions regarding AI development as a member of Alphabet's board of directors, earning evaluations that he is ready to step up immediately as a relief pitcher.

However, this comeback is expected to be a challenging path for Brin.

He must immediately address market concerns over whether AI monetization is feasible despite the company's massive investments in AI infrastructure, while also tackling the adverse effects of consecutive departures of AI talent.

In fact, this leadership reshuffle began with the departure of Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, who had been considered a "legendary researcher" within Google.

Upon news of Dean's departure, Alphabet's stock price fell by about 5 percent.

The Financial Times pointed out that this situation can also be interpreted as the result of a clash between the academic-centric culture of London-based DeepMind and the business-oriented strategy of the Silicon Valley headquarters.

According to current and former DeepMind insiders, the company's atmosphere is heavily shaken by the news of the leadership overhaul.

With a pervasive sense of crisis that the internal research culture protected by Hassabis as AI chief could vanish overnight, several employees are reportedly already preparing to leave.

Hassabis will step away from frontline operations at Google to focus primarily on academic tasks, such as discussing the direction of future AI like Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

Hassabis was a co-recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for advancing protein structure research through the development of AlphaFold.

He will also continue to serve as CEO of Isomorphic Labs, a drug discovery company utilizing AlphaFold technology.

An acquaintance of Hassabis said, "This reorganization seems like a very good outcome for Demis, and I understand he is relieved and pleased. He enjoyed the privilege of working in London rather than the U.S. while serving as Google's AI chief, building significant influence, and now he has secured the foundation to invest more time in Isomorphic Labs, which he is passionate about."

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