Demis Hassabis is stepping down as DeepMind CEO to become chairman and Alphabet's Chief Scientist; Koray Kavukcuoglu is promoted to DeepMind SVP, reporting directly to Pichai. Separately, Jeff Dean — Google's longest-tenured engineering leader, 27 years — is leaving to found "Discovery Loop," an AI-for-science startup Google itself is backing. First leadership change at the top of a frontier lab this map has tracked. Watch: whether this reads as succession planning or a real strategy shift (does DeepMind's model pace or priorities change under Kavukcuoglu?); what Hassabis's chairman + Chief Scientist role actually does day to day vs. is honorary; what Discovery Loop builds and whether Google backing a departing exec's startup becomes a pattern; whether other frontier labs see similar moves.
