Deepmind was built to chase AGI, but its new chief just wants Gemini 4 out the door
New DeepMind chief Koray Kavukcuoglu prioritizes shipping Gemini 4 quickly, sidelining AGI pursuit as top researchers exit Google.
Koray Kavukcuoglu, who replaced Demis Hassabis as DeepMind head in August, says an early Gemini 4 post-training output will be released as soon as possible with fast iterations. Gemini 3.5 Pro missed three deadlines and never shipped, while OpenAI (GPT-6) and Anthropic (Mythos/Fable, updated Opus) have pulled ahead in capability. DeepMind's ratio of new hires to departures fell from roughly 12:1 in Q2 2023 to 2:1 in Q3 2026 amid exits including Noam Shazeer, John Jumper, and Jeff Dean. All Gemini development is moving to the Bay Area, completing the lab's transformation into a product unit.
- Kavukcuoglu pledges rapid Gemini 4 release after Gemini 3.5 Pro missed three deadlines
- Gemini development relocates to Bay Area; Hassabis exit reportedly not fully voluntary
- Talent drain includes Shazeer, Jumper, Dean; hire-to-departure ratio fell to 2:1
- Leadership reframes AGI debate around building trustworthy agents instead
From the original article
4 min read at the-decoder.com
Google Deepmind chief Koray Kavukcuoglu wants to release Gemini 4 "much earlier" than the end of the year. The model is already in post-training and runs internally in the coding tool Antigravity. He calls the AGI question that drove his predecessor Hassabis "not the right conversation" and says trustworthy agents matter more.
By Maximilian Schreiner · the-decoder.com
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