Google reshuffles DeepMind leadership to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic

Google is restructuring its leadership at Google DeepMind to close the competitive gap with rivals OpenAI and Anthropic. Koray Kavukcuoglu, formerly the CTO of Google’s AI unit and chief AI architect, will become Senior Vice President, replacing Demis Hassabis, who will transition to the role of President of the organization.

The leadership shift follows a period where Google has struggled to match the rapid releases of advanced models from its competitors, such as Anthropic’s ‘Mythos’ and OpenAI’s ‘GPT-5.6’. While Google saw success with the Gemini 3 release in late 2025, analysts suggest the company lost ground in critical areas like coding by focusing too heavily on revenue-generating multimodal models.

To address these deficiencies, Google has formed an internal ‘Code Strike’ team to bolster coding capabilities, which are considered essential for the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The strategic move signals a shift in priorities from purely academic research toward improving model performance and enhancing developer tools to regain its position at the forefront of AI development.