Demis Hassabis, the founder and CEO of Google’s artificial intelligence division DeepMind, is stepping aside to a more advisory role, Google announced on Wednesday. Hassabis will become DeepMind’s chair, and take a new role as chief scientist at Google parent Alphabet.

The move comes alongside a broader restructuring of Google DeepMind, according to multiple people familiar with the changes, as Google attempts to catch up to industry leaders OpenAI and Anthropic.

In a note to staff, Hassabis said he believed that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is “close at hand” and said he had decided to switch roles “so that I have the time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come to the best of my ability.”

Although the news shocked the AI industry, some DeepMind employees suggested it made sense. Hassabis had spent less time on Gemini, Google’s struggling frontier AI model, in recent months, according to two people with knowledge of his focus, and was spending more time on questions of safety and what the arrival of AGI would mean for society.

Other changes are accompanying his move. Lila Ibrahim, DeepMind’s Chief AI Readiness Officer, will now report to James Manyika, a senior Google executive, according to four people with knowledge of the personnel changes. Some of the teams that previously reported to her, including some safety teams, will now report to Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, one of these people said, though two others warned that no decision has yet been finalized.