Google DeepMind
Leadership History
3 leaders · 2010 to present
Koray Kavukcuoglu (SVP, Google DeepMind) is the CEO of Google DeepMind, in the role since 2026. The first chief executive was Sir Demis Hassabis, from 2010.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Koray Kavukcuoglu | SVP, Google DeepMind | 2026 | Present | < 1 |
| Sir Demis Hassabis | Co-Founder; CEO 2010 to 2026, now Chair and Alphabet Chief Scientist | 2010 | 2026 | 16 |
| Mustafa Suleyman | Co-Founder | 2010 | 2022 | 12 |
Google DeepMind is the lab that builds Google's AI. It began as a London research startup focused on reinforcement learning and games, became famous for AlphaGo and AlphaFold, and after the 2023 merger with Google Brain took over development of Gemini. Today its models run inside Search, the Gemini app, Android, Workspace and Google Cloud, so its work reaches billions of users even though it sells nothing under its own name. The company is headquartered in London, United Kingdom.
Google DeepMind does not sell products under its own name. It is a cost center inside Alphabet that builds the models Google monetizes: Gemini powers AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search (supporting ad revenue), the Gemini app and Google One AI subscriptions, Gemini for Workspace, and pay-per-token Gemini APIs on Google AI Studio and Vertex AI in Google Cloud. Its UK company, DeepMind Technologies Limited, books revenue mainly from research and development services provided to other Alphabet companies, reaching more than $1.98 billion (£1.5 billion) in 2023. Drug discovery is commercialized separately through Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet company that Hassabis also leads.
SVP, Google DeepMind
2026 – Present
0 years (current)
Kavukcuoglu managed the incredibly complex technical merger when Alphabet forcibly combined DeepMind with the Google Brain team to create a unified AI research behemoth.
As VP of Research (and later CTO), he directed the core engineering teams behind landmark breakthroughs like AlphaGo and AlphaFold, fundamentally advancing reinforcement learning.
Co-Founder; CEO 2010 to 2026, now Chair and Alphabet Chief Scientist
2010 – 2026
16 years
Co-founded DeepMind in 2010 with the goal of "solving intelligence"; sold it to Google in 2014; directed AlphaGo (2016) and AlphaFold (2020); launched Isomorphic Labs in 2021; led the merged Google DeepMind from 2023 through Gemini 1 to Gemini 3; handed day-to-day control to Koray Kavukcuoglu in August 2026.
Built DeepMind from a London startup into Google's main AI lab and shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold.
Co-Founder
2010 – 2022
12 years
Suleyman heavily pushed the highly controversial attempt to integrate DeepMind's AI directly into the UK's National Health Service (NHS), which led to massive privacy investigations.
As Co-Founder, he served as the public face of the company's applied AI division before leaving in 2022 to found Inflection AI (and subsequently taking over Microsoft's consumer AI division).
Sir Demis Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010 and was its CEO until August 2026, when he became Chair of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet. He was a chess master at 13, studied computer science at Cambridge, founded Elixir Studios, earned a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at UCL, and also leads Isomorphic Labs.
In 2024, Demis Hassabis was knighted by King Charles III for services to Artificial Intelligence and was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for co-creating AlphaFold, cementing his legacy as one of the most transformative scientists of the 21st century.
Dr. John Jumper is a Senior Research Scientist and Director at Google DeepMind. Jumper led the AlphaFold 2 and AlphaFold 3 development teams, earning the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside Demis Hassabis for solving the 50-year-old protein folding problem.
Shane Legg is the Co-Founder and Chief AGI Scientist of Google DeepMind. Legg, who earned his PhD under AI pioneer Marcus Hutter in Switzerland, formalizes theoretical definitions of Artificial General Intelligence and directs DeepMind's long-term AGI safety and alignment research.
Koray Kavukcuoglu joined DeepMind in its early years, started its deep learning team and worked on DQN and WaveNet. He became CTO of Google DeepMind and Chief AI Architect of Google, and on August 5, 2026 was named SVP of Google DeepMind, overseeing Gemini, frontier research and the Gemini app.
Mustafa Suleyman co-founded DeepMind in 2010, leading DeepMind Applied and AI ethics initiatives. Suleyman later served as VP of AI Product Management at Google, co-founded Inflection AI in 2022, and was appointed CEO of Microsoft AI in 2024.
Demis Hassabis approaches AGI through the lens of neuroscience and first-principles physics: viewing intelligence as a computational meta-process that can unlock fundamental scientific breakthroughs across biology, materials, energy, and cosmology.
Google DeepMind is a division of Google within Alphabet. Since August 2026 its leader, SVP Koray Kavukcuoglu, reports directly to CEO Sundar Pichai, and Hassabis advises as Chair. Time reported that DeepMind's communications, legal and marketing teams would merge with Google's.
Demis Hassabis is the co-founder and CEO. An absolute polymath, he was a child chess prodigy, a video game designer (Theme Park), and holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, perfectly positioning him to build Artificial General Intelligence.
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