❯ Financial Times: Google AI reshuffle was months in the making as Hassabis hands over day-to-day control

BATON PASSGoogle DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis is giving up the CEO title, moving to chairman of the unit and chief scientist at Alphabet, with day-to-day operations going to former DeepMind CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu. The FT reports this was no snap decision but a structural move months in the making, driven by mounting frustration among senior executives over Hassabis’s management style. Alphabet shares fell roughly 4%–5% on the day the news broke.

POWER SHIFTThe reshuffle visibly pushes AI-strategy influence back toward Silicon Valley, locking in co-founder Sergey Brin’s clout. Citing current and former DeepMind staff, the FT says sentiment in London is unsettled, and some are already preparing to leave. The lab was acquired by Google in 2014 and retained considerable research independence for the next decade; after merging with Google Brain in 2023, productization pressure has intensified year after year, with Gemini’s iteration cadence now the dominant yardstick.

RESEARCH AUTONOMYFor Google, this is about bolting the research engine to the product machine — in a race decided by shipping speed, research autonomy is usually the first casualty. Researchers in London are now focused on a very practical question: whether the authority to greenlight long-cycle projects stays in their hands. In the months ahead, whether they stay or go will directly shape the density of Google’s fundamental-research output — and hand rival labs a fresh crop of talent to recruit.

▪ SIGNALA title changed hands; decision-making power moved across half a continent.