Google parent company Alphabet (GOOGL) has named a new leader for its DeepMind artificial intelligence (A.I.) laboratory and business unit.
Koray Kavukcuoglu is taking over DeepMind from cofounder and CEO Demis Hassabis, who is becoming the organization’s chair.
Kavukcuoglu was previously DeepMind’s chief technology officer (CTO) and Google’s chief A.I. architect.
Analysts say that Kavukcuoglu is likely to face intense pressure to close the A.I. performance gap with startup companies OpenAI and Anthropic.
Both OpenAI and Anthropic have released new systems this summer that are being praised for their speed and accuracy.
Alphabet, which acquired DeepMind in 2014, hasn’t unveiled a new A.I. model since the start of this year.
Perceptions had been that Alphabet was out front in the A.I. race following the late 2025 release of the company’s Gemini 3 model.
Analysts said Gemini 3 moved frontier models forward, with capabilities that far exceeded what people had come to expect from A.I. chatbots.
Kavukcuoglu is part of DeepMind’s old guard, having joined the company in 2012 before the Alphabet acquisition.
He will look to bring renewed focus on challenging Anthropic and OpenAI in frontier A.I. models, say analysts.
Reporting directly to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Kavukcuoglu will oversee Gemini model development, frontier A.I. research, and the Gemini app, said the company.
Along with Kavukcuoglu’s promotion, Alphabet announced on Aug. 11 that its Gemini A.I. app has surpassed one billion monthly users.
In a written statement, Alphabet said that the Gemini A.I. app has seen the fastest growth of any product in the company’s history.
GOOGL stock has gained 69% over the last 12 months to trade at $343.80 U.S. per share.
Tech Insider
