Google puts Koray over Gemini as Jeff Dean exits after 27 years

Google is reorganizing the command structure behind Gemini at a moment when its AI products have reached consumer scale. In an August 5, 2026 message, Sundar Pichai said Koray Kavukcuoglu will become SVP of Google DeepMind and oversee Gemini model development, Frontier AI research, the Gemini app, and developer teams. Demis Hassabis is moving into the roles of Google DeepMind Chair and Alphabet Chief Scientist, with more focus on AGI strategy and science.

The operating pressure is visible in the numbers Google chose to publish. Pichai said the Gemini app has reached 950M+ monthly users, while Gemma models have passed 900M+ downloads. Gemini is no longer only a lab artifact or developer API; it is spread through Search, AI Mode, AI Overviews, the Gemini app, Cloud, and developer tooling. Putting model development and product-facing teams under Koray gives Google a tighter line from research decisions to shipped AI surfaces.

Koray has worked at DeepMind for more than 13 years and was described as an early leader behind work such as WaveNet and DQN. Until now, he has been Google DeepMind CTO and Google’s Chief AI Architect. Under the new structure, he reports to Pichai while holding the model, app, and developer remit together. Hassabis wrote separately that Gemini model work is in Koray’s hands and pointed to progress on new models including Gemini 4.

The other major move is Jeff Dean’s departure. Dean, Google’s 30th employee and a 27-year veteran, is leaving with Google Senior Fellow Sanjay Ghemawat to launch an independent public benefit corporation focused on accelerating discoveries in ML, science, and engineering. Google says it will support the new organization as a founding investor and Cloud partner, while also collaborating on ML systems and infrastructure research.

The story matters because Google is trying to keep two promises at once: move faster in frontier AI products, and keep a senior scientific center of gravity around AGI and health. The next signal will be whether Koray’s expanded remit turns Gemini 4 and future developer-platform work into faster launches, and whether Dean and Ghemawat’s outside organization becomes a serious new node in AI-for-science infrastructure.