Jeff Dean, Google's Chief Scientist and one of the company's most influential AI pioneers, announced his departure alongside colleagues Sanjay Ghemawat, Quoc Le and Oriol Vinyals to launch Discovery Loop, a public-benefit corporation focused on breakthroughs in machine learning, science and engineering. Dean, who joined Google as employee number 30 in 1999, has played a key role in nearly all of the company's major products, from search to ads to chips, culminating in his work guiding artificial intelligence advances. "We are founding Discovery Loop … a Public Benefit Corporation whose mission is to automate machine learning, science, and engineering to accelerate discoveries and progress," Dean shared, noting that the plan starts narrow by automating machine learning research and testing tools on itself first, with medicine, solar energy and cybersecurity coming later. Discovery Loop also intends to use Google for computing resources, meaning the tech firm may still benefit from Dean for the foreseeable future. As per NDTV, Alphabet is among the backers for Dean's new startup, with the company not cutting ties with the departing researchers.
Alphabet's Class C shares fell 4.32%, or $16.21, to $359.14 on Wednesday after Google announced a sweeping overhaul of its AI leadership. The stock opened at $380 and rose to $381.81 before turning sharply lower, touching an intraday low of $355.16. The overhaul comes as Google faces challenges with its latest AI model, with the flagship version of its latest Gemini model remaining unreleased despite a planned June launch, raising concerns that Google is falling behind rivals Anthropic and OpenAI. The stock has gained 86% over the past 12 months and 15% this year, outperforming Amazon, which rose 28% over the past year, and Microsoft, which declined more than 8%.
Alphabet Inc.'s Google is concentrating its artificial intelligence leadership at its Mountain View, California, headquarters to gain momentum in the accelerating race against Anthropic and OpenAI to build the world's dominant AI models. The tech giant appointed Koray Kavukcuoglu, who moved to Mountain View in the past year, to run its sprawling AI research and operations, while Demis Hassabis, DeepMind's co-founder and long-time chief executive officer, has stepped back from day-to-day operations to become chairman of Google DeepMind and Alphabet's Chief Scientist. According to Business Standard, efforts to centralize Google's AI leadership are aimed at reversing a trend that has beset Google since at least 2023, when it merged two prized labs that were operating independently: Google Brain, which was housed in the company's Mountain View headquarters, and DeepMind, which is rooted in London. Sebastian Borgeaud, the head of a key AI coding effort, also moved from the UK to California, with others departing from the company's London headquarters altogether. While the labs joined under the banner of Google DeepMind, researchers continued to operate on separate continents, which complicated decision-making and frustrated talent on both continents.
Kavukcuoglu is formally assuming responsibility for Google's AI ambitions as it loses ground to rivals, with the company months behind schedule in launching the most powerful version of its flagship AI model. Researchers' frustration with Google's competitive position has mounted, prompting a wave of departures to launch startups and defections to rivals Anthropic and OpenAI, which offer a place at the cutting edge of the market and the riches of an upcoming initial public offering. Google has pledged to spend as much as $205 billion this year alone on capital expenditures to support its AI ambitions, pressuring Kavukcuoglu to show results quickly. Some notable departures include David Silver, a distinguished researcher at DeepMind's London office, who left earlier this year to form Ineffable Intelligence, which raised $1.1 billion in seed capital, and Simon Bouton, DeepMind's Chief Experience Officer, a 13-year veteran who oversees operational staff, is also planning to leave for CuspAI, a London-based startup. The leadership changes come as Google faces competitive pressure, with the company on the defensive following advances from rivals Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as momentum for cheaper Chinese open-source models.
Despite the leadership exodus, Google Cloud revenue surged 82% to $24.77 billion in the latest quarter, beating the $24.56 billion estimate and rising from $13.6 billion a year earlier. Alphabet also raised its annual capital-spending forecast to between $195 billion and $205 billion from $180 billion to $190 billion, briefly sending shares down more than 6% before they recovered. Hassabis told staff that "Google had made great progress" on its AI models, including an unreleased upgrade called Gemini 4, though the flagship version of the latest Gemini model remains unreleased despite a planned June launch. The moves over the past year have meant that many of Google's key AI leaders who are focused on driving forward the Gemini model — which is the linchpin of its AI strategy — are united in one place. Since the AI boom kicked off, Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai and co-founder Sergey Brin have both been regular presences on a floor dedicated to employees working on Gemini, but Hassabis was rarely sighted, according to a Google employee.
