Hassabis steps down as DeepMind's chief executive

Demis Hassabis is stepping down as chief executive of Google DeepMind to become the unit's chairman and take on a newly created role as Alphabet's chief scientist. Koray Kavukcuoglu, previously DeepMind's chief technology officer, becomes senior vice president of Google DeepMind and takes over daily operations, reporting directly to Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai while retaining his separate role as Google's chief AI architect.

Jeff Dean, a 27-year Google veteran and the company's chief scientist, is also leaving. Dean is launching a public-benefit corporation called Discovery Loop alongside Google senior fellow Sanjay Ghemawat and other colleagues. Alphabet shares fell about 4 percent after the changes were announced.

Two of the executives most identified with Google's AI research now sit outside day-to-day command, leaving Kavukcuoglu alone at the operational helm of Gemini development.