Google’s parent company Alphabet has announced a major leadership change at its artificial intelligence division, Google DeepMind.
Koray Kavukcuoglu, who previously served as Google DeepMind’s Chief Technology Officer and Chief AI Architect, has been appointed Senior Vice President. In his new role, he will be responsible for model development, cutting-edge AI research, Gemini and developer teams.
The appointment was announced by Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on X.
“A World-Renowned Expert”
Pichai highlighted Kavukcuoglu’s long-standing contribution to Google DeepMind and his role in some of the company’s major AI breakthroughs.
“Koray has been at GDM (Google DeepMind) for 13 years and is a world-renowned expert in the field, starting our deep learning team and driving breakthroughs like WaveNet & DQN (Deep Q-Network). GDM is in great hands!”
Kavukcuoglu’s new position places him at the center of Google’s efforts to advance its next generation of artificial intelligence models and products.
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Demis Hassabis Takes a Broader AI and Science Role
As part of the leadership reshuffle, Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis will become chair of the division’s board and chief scientist at Alphabet, while continuing to lead Isomorphic Labs.
Pichai said Hassabis will focus on:
“shaping the future of AGI (artificial general intelligence) and scientific discovery,”
which he described as highly important to both Alphabet and humanity.
A Turkish Engineer at the Center of Google’s AI Strategy
Kavukcuoglu’s appointment is particularly notable for Türkiye’s technology ecosystem, placing a Turkish engineer in one of the most influential leadership positions within the global AI industry.
His career at Google DeepMind spans 13 years, during which he contributed to the development of deep learning capabilities and breakthroughs including WaveNet and Deep Q-Network (DQN).
With responsibility for Gemini, AI model development, advanced research and developer teams, Kavukcuoglu will now play a central role in shaping Google’s AI strategy.
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