Foundation models
Google DeepMind
Alphabet's unified AI research and product lab, formed from the 2023 merger of DeepMind and Google Brain, and the maker of the Gemini model family.
- Founded
- 2010
- Based in
- London, United Kingdom
- Stage
- Division of a larger company
- Business model
- API / developer platform, Consumer subscription, Enterprise contracts
- Record
- VerifiedChecked 24 September 2026
What Google DeepMind does
DeepMind was founded in London in 2010 by Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman, and acquired by Google in 2014. In April 2023, Google merged DeepMind with Google Brain, its other internal AI research group, into a single organization - Google DeepMind - reporting to Alphabet. The combined lab builds the Gemini model family that now underpins Google Search's AI features, the Gemini app, and Google's developer AI tooling, alongside continued fundamental research: DeepMind's AlphaFold protein-structure work won Hassabis and colleague John Jumper the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
In August 2026, Hassabis stepped back from day-to-day CEO duties into a chair and chief scientist role at Alphabet, with Koray Kavukcuoglu taking over frontier model leadership at Google DeepMind - a restructuring reported alongside researcher departures and delays to the Gemini 3.5 release.
- Large language models
- Multimodal models
- AI agents
Runs it
- Demis HassabisFounder; now Chair & Chief Scientist, Google DeepMind
- Shane LeggCo-founder; Chief AGI Scientist
- Mustafa SuleymanCo-founder (departed)
- Koray KavukcuogluChief AI Architect, leading frontier model development (from August 2026)
Google DeepMind
Division of a larger company
What it builds
Gemini
Alphabet's flagship multimodal model family, powering the Gemini app, AI Overviews in Search, and developer APIs.
gemini.google.com (opens in a new tab)AlphaFold
Protein structure prediction model, made freely available for academic research.
deepmind.google/technologies/alphafold (opens in a new tab)Veo
Text-to-video generation model.
Who runs it
Founders
Demis Hassabis
Founder; now Chair & Chief Scientist, Google DeepMind
Co-recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold.
Shane Legg
Co-founder; Chief AGI Scientist
Mustafa Suleyman
Co-founder (departed)
Now CEO of Microsoft AI.
Leadership
Koray Kavukcuoglu
Chief AI Architect, leading frontier model development (from August 2026)
Demis Hassabis
Chair & Chief Scientist, Alphabet / Google DeepMind (from August 2026)
What it has done
Demis Hassabis steps back from CEO role
Hassabis moved into an advisory chair and chief scientist role at Alphabet, with Koray Kavukcuoglu taking over frontier AI leadership at Google DeepMind amid reported model delays and senior researcher departures.
axios.com/2026/08/06/googles-ai-leadership-shuffle (opens in a new tab)Senior researchers depart for rival labs
Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer left for OpenAI and AlphaFold co-inventor John Jumper left for Anthropic, reported as part of a broader talent contest among frontier labs.
fortune.com/2026/08/10/how-stalled-models-missed-deadlines-and-staff-burnout-lead-to-the-unraveling-of-googles-deepmind (opens in a new tab)
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