Google is shaking up the leadership of its AI division as it works to close the gap with rivals OpenAI and Anthropic.
Koray Kavukcuoglu is becoming the new head of DeepMind, Google's AI unit. He will report directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Kavukcuoglu previously served as DeepMind's chief technology officer and as Google's chief AI architect. He joined DeepMind in 2012, two years before Google bought the company.
He is replacing Demis Hassabis, who cofounded DeepMind and has led it since the acquisition. Hassabis will now take on the role of chair.
A Widening Gap at the Frontier
Google has struggled to keep pace with OpenAI and Anthropic this year. Both companies released systems that drew praise for their advanced abilities.
Google, on the other hand, has not put out a frontier model since early 2026. That has raised questions about the company's direction under Hassabis.
Analysts say Hassabis focused heavily on research beyond large language models, including work in robotics, world models, and health through Isomorphic Labs.
Kavukcuoglu is expected to shift that focus. He will oversee Gemini model development, frontier AI research, and the teams behind the Gemini app and developer tools.
Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, said the goal will be closing gaps with OpenAI and Anthropic. He said the move points to a stronger focus on developer tools and frontier performance.
Malik Ahmed Khan, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said Google fell behind partly because it focused on areas like search rather than coding. Coding has become a central battleground in AI development.
Google had already formed an internal team called Code Strike to work on coding capabilities. Alphabet also delayed the release of Gemini 3.5 Pro this year to improve performance in that area.
What Comes Next for DeepMind
Nick Patience, AI lead at the Futurum Group, said Kavukcuoglu's first task will be shipping Gemini 3.5 Pro. He said the next step will be keeping a steady release schedule afterward.
Patience also said Kavukcuoglu needs to rebuild coding and pretraining teams after departures at the company.
DeepMind was originally based in London, and Hassabis stayed there as CEO after the acquisition. Kavukcuoglu has already relocated to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Patience said Google appears to be moving its AI leadership away from London. A Google spokesperson said the company remains committed to its London presence.
Sebastian Mallaby, author of a biography on Hassabis, said Google's AI business is generating strong revenue even though its models trail competitors. He pointed to Gemini's use across Android phones and its role in Apple Intelligence.
Mallaby said it would be wrong to describe the departures as a broader crisis at the company. He noted that thousands of people work on the Gemini team.
Brian Hopkins, an analyst at Forrester, said placing Gemini's models, app, and developer teams under one executive mirrors how a product company operates. He said this is an area where Google has an edge over OpenAI and Anthropic.
Alphabet shares dropped the day the leadership change was announced. The stock remains up roughly 76% over the past twelve months.
Pichai said last month that nearly 90% of Fortune 100 companies use Gemini Enterprise, pointing to strong demand for Google's AI services among business customers.
