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Brin, unhappy with lagging behind Anthropic, demands full commitment to Gemini model
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Google co-founder Sergey Brin is urging the company's AI team to fully commit to the Gemini models in response to the intensifying AI race. According to a Reuters report on August 13, Brin has repeatedly asked Google DeepMind to accelerate development and close the gap with competitors in recent months.
In November last year, Google's Gemini model briefly took the lead, but the latest updates from Anthropic and OpenAI have caused it to fall behind once again. Internal tests show that the new flagship Gemini model still lags behind rivals in areas such as coding, prompting Google to delay its release by two months.
In April, Brin addressed hundreds of employees at an all-hands meeting. At that time, Anthropic was aggressively pushing a preview of its powerful Claude Mythos model. According to sources, Brin urged the DeepMind lab to pick up the pace.
On August 5, Google announced a major leadership reshuffle at DeepMind. CEO Demis Hassabis stepped down, with his deputy Koray Kavukcuoglu taking over. Hassabis moved to chairman, with reduced management responsibilities. Meanwhile, two original technical leads on the Gemini project resigned and co-founded a startup.
These changes mark a further erosion of DeepMind's autonomy. Since Google acquired the London lab in 2014, it has gradually tightened control to push the commercialization of AI technology. On August 6, Alphabet announced that some teams would leave DeepMind and be integrated into Google.
At an all-hands meeting last Thursday, Hassabis and Kavukcuoglu tried to reassure employees, informing them that several non-technical teams would be spun off and incorporated into the company's overall reporting structure. Sources said most employees only learned of the change after it was made public.
Kavukcuoglu moved from London to Mountain View last year and was promoted to Chief AI Architect, reporting directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. He is more commercially oriented and has been DeepMind's main liaison with Google Cloud. His appointment is seen as a signal of consolidated power.
While some observers question whether Google is retreating from the model race, people familiar with the matter say the commercialization strategy and personnel changes are closely tied to achieving model dominance. Google declined to respond to questions about Brin's involvement and changes to DeepMind's structure. The next steps for Gemini will become a focus of market attention.
