Sir Demis Hassabis is stepping back from day-to-day leadership of Google DeepMind, becoming its chair while also taking the role of Alphabet’s chief scientist. The move marks a significant change for the London-based AI lab, with critics and some employees fearing it will lose independence as Google integrates it more closely with its wider commercial and strategic priorities.

Hassabis, who co-founded DeepMind before Google bought it in 2014, led breakthroughs including AlphaGo and AlphaFold and shared the 2024 Nobel chemistry prize for the latter. US-based longtime colleague Koray Kavukcuoglu will lead DeepMind as senior vice-president, while the unit faces intense competition from OpenAI and Anthropic and internal concern over Google’s work with the Pentagon, homeland security and military-linked AI applications.