Google DeepMind: Koray Kavukcuoglu takes over cutting-edge AI drive

DeepMind’s new boss will face intense pressure to close the AI ​​performance gap with OpenAI and Anthropic.

OpenAI and Anthropic have released new systems in recent months that have drawn both praise and concern for their advanced features. on the other hand, googleacquired DeepMind in 2014, but hasn’t released a Frontier model since early 2026.

Koray Kavukcuoglu, who previously served as CTO of AI and chief AI architect at parent company Google, is taking over the race to catch up with OpenAI and Anthropic at the forefront, building industry-leading models. He will succeed Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, as senior vice president and chairman of the organization.

“The goal is definitely to close the gap with Anthropic and OpenAI in some areas,” Ben Wood, principal analyst at CCS Insight, told CNBC.

Kavukcuoglu’s promotion “feels like a move aimed at refocusing Google’s efforts away from academic projects and toward a greater focus on improving frontier performance and improving toolsets for developers,” Wood added.

Google fell behind OpenAI, which set the pace after making ChatGPT publicly available in 2022. Things changed in November 2025 when Google released Gemini 3.

Analysts said the model is a “Frontier forward” with features “far beyond what you would normally expect from a Frontier model of this generation.”

But in 2026, OpenAI and Claude maker Anthropic are working on a new release. Anthropic’s Mythos model broke new ground, and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 received praise as well.

Following February’s Gemini 3.1 Pro, Google’s releases this year haven’t challenged the front lines. To strengthen our coding capabilities, which are essential to advancing the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI), we have formed an internal team called Code Strike.

Google fell behind Anthropic and OpenAI. “This is because the company focused on monetizable areas like search and multimodal and missed the first clear killer use case: coding,” Morningstar senior equity analyst Malik Ahmed Khan told CNBC. Coding is an area where the two companies are “miles ahead” of Google, he added.

A Google spokesperson told CNBC that it was inaccurate to say the company had strayed from its mission to solve “intelligence” before solving “everything else.” They said the path to AGI includes advancing areas such as agents, coding, robotics, and world models, and pointed to DeepMind releases across robotics, video, computer applications, and even public policy initiatives and research.

Kavukcuoglu is a veteran of DeepMind, having joined in 2012 before the Google acquisition, and amid several high-profile departures, the company is looking to refocus its efforts on taking on Anthropic and OpenAI at the forefront.

Kabukkuoglu will report directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and will oversee Gemini model development, frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer team, Pichai said in a statement.

Kabukukoglu’s appointment “provides a clear path forward for improvements to LLM (Large-Scale Language Models) and a greater focus on GDM,” Morningstar’s Khan said. “Google believes it is likely to be in a better position in LLM competition with these changes than it would be without these changes,” he added.

“Demis has always been interested in building AGI beyond the LLM,” says Kahn.

He added that Hassabis’ tenure leading DeepMind was “with a clear focus not only on research in the health sector, such as Isomorphic Labs, but also on other areas such as multimodal, such as global models.”

Sources close to the DeepMind team told CNBC last week that Kavukcuoglu had been taking on broader responsibilities from Hassabis over the past year, including leading model development and announcing major Gemini releases.

Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research, told CNBC that Kabukukoglu’s promotion “suggests that Google is prioritizing execution over thorough research.” “We expect to see a focus on faster releases, more experimentation, and development that aligns with the product roadmap.”

Alphabet’s stock price fell in July after Bloomberg reported that the company delayed the release of Gemini 3.5 Pro to improve performance in areas such as coding.

“The first step[for Kavukcuoglu]is to ship Gemini 3.5 Pro if possible and then maintain a predictable release cadence to prove it’s not a one-off,” said Nick Patience, AI lead at Futurum Group. In addition to shipping models that can compete on the front lines, Kavukcuoglu told CNBC, “we need to rebuild the coding and pre-training expertise that has already been developed.”

DeepMind was based in London before the acquisition, and Hassabis remained in London as CEO after it became a division within Google. DeepMind’s continued presence there has energized the UK’s AI ecosystem.

Under his previous role, Kavukukoglu moved from London to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.

“Google is quietly increasing its AI leadership out of London,” Patience said. A Google spokesperson told CNBC that the company will continue to maintain a presence in the UK capital.

Alphabet stock fell on Thursday when the AI ​​personnel changes were announced, but the stock has risen about 76% in the past 12 months.

Alphabet CEO Pichai said on an earnings call last month that nearly 90% of Fortune 100 companies use Gemini Enterprise, highlighting the company’s ability to sell AI services to cloud customers.

“The model is behind and they want to catch up and they’re taking it seriously, but the monetization of the model has been very successful,” Sebastian Mallaby, author of Hassabis’ biography “The Infinity Machine,” told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday. He pointed out that Google’s AI is coming to Android smartphones and Siri. apple iPhone intelligence.

Mallaby added that it would be a mistake to “paint a picture of a total crisis” at the company based on big-name departures. “This is a big team. If you count everyone, there are thousands of people on the Gemini team. So you shouldn’t over-index on a few big names.”

Brian Hopkins, vice president, emerging technologies and principal analyst at Forrester, said Google’s AI advantage could be further enhanced by Kabukkoglu’s breadth of authority, including developing the Gemini model, the Gemini app and developer team, and reporting directly to Sundar Pichai.

“Companies are organizing product groups, not labs, by models, apps, and teams of developers under one executive,” he told CNBC. “This is something Google knows how to do much better than OpenAI or Anthropic.”

— CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos contributed to this report.