Google's AI operations have a new leader, but the incoming executive is stepping into a challenging situation.

Koray Kavukcuoglu will replace DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis as Senior Vice President of Google DeepMind, reporting directly to CEO Sundar Pichai, according to reports.

Currently, the company's flagship model Gemini 3.5 Pro has been delayed, while weaknesses in coding capabilities for frontier model competition and a steady loss of top-tier talent are also issues awaiting the new chief.

For Kavukcuoglu, this new role represents more than just a transfer of power; it's a critical "catch-up" session for AI competitiveness. As OpenAI and Anthropic continuously push the boundaries of frontier models, Google needs to quickly prove that Gemini still has what it takes to be in the industry's top tier.

Frontier Models Falling Behind, With Coding as the Biggest Weakness

Google's pressure in the AI frontier race is now being transmitted from the model release schedule to the market.

As previously reported by Bloomberg, Google postponed the release of its flagship model Gemini 3.5 Pro because the model still requires further improvements in key areas like coding. This news had already sparked market concerns and was a factor in the decline of Alphabet shares in July.

Google has not been without its moments of glory. When Gemini 3 was released in November 2025, the market believed it had pushed frontier model capabilities to "new heights." However, entering 2026, the competitive landscape shifted once again.

Morningstar Senior Equity Analyst Malik Ahmed Khan stated that a key reason Google has fallen behind Anthropic and OpenAI is that the company has allocated more resources to commercial areas like search and multimodal directions, yet missed the opportunity to be the first to establish a clear killer application in the coding scenario.

In his view, Anthropic and OpenAI have already built a "more than one step" lead over Google in coding capabilities.

Google has pushed back against this narrative of "deviating from the AGI main line." The company maintains that the path to AGI will not be confined to a single direction but will cover multiple areas including agents, coding, robotics, and world models. To strengthen its coding capabilities, Google has also formed an internal team called "Code Strike."

However, for the current model competition, how to translate these directions into faster, stronger products remains a question Google must answer.

Hassabis Hands Over the Baton, AI Strategy Shifts to 'Execution'

Kavukcuoglu is not an external hire.

He joined DeepMind in 2012, before Google's acquisition of DeepMind in 2014, and has since served as DeepMind's Chief Technology Officer and Google's Chief AI Architect, making him one of the company's most senior technical managers in AI.

In fact, this transition was not sudden. According to reports citing sources, over the past year, Kavukcuoglu has gradually taken on more responsibilities from Hassabis, including model development and major Gemini product launches.

This official appointment is seen by the market as a signal that Google's AI business is shifting further from "research-driven" to "product execution."

Constellation Research Principal Analyst Ray Wang believes Kavukcuoglu's promotion indicates that Google is placing a greater emphasis on execution. He suggests we may see a faster product release cadence, more experimental exploration, and a more focused product roadmap in the future.

In contrast, Hassabis previously emphasized an AGI path that goes beyond traditional large language models. Khan noted that Hassabis's tenure focused heavily on multimodal, world model, and health sector projects, but with Kavukcuoglu taking over, "improving LLM capabilities will become a clear path forward."

This means the new leader's primary task may be quite clear: first, bring Gemini back into the frontier model competition.

Talent Exodus, The New Chief Also Needs to Rebuild the Team

Beyond model performance, Kavukcuoglu faces another challenge: talent.

Over the past period, there has been a continuous outflow of top-tier talent from Google's AI team, leading external observers to worry about whether its coding and pre-training capabilities have been affected.

Nick Patience, Head of AI at Futurum Group, offered straightforward advice: the first step is to deliver Gemini 3.5 Pro as soon as possible and prove through a stable, predictable release cadence that this model is not a one-off product breakthrough. Simultaneously, Google needs to rebuild its team of coding and pre-training experts.

In other words, Google's problem isn't just "when will a model be released," but how to re-establish the talent and organizational capabilities needed for the continuous iteration of frontier models.

However, some believe the market's concern about talent loss may be overblown.

Sebastian Mallaby, author of "The Infinity Machine," stated in an interview that judging Google's overall AI business as being in crisis based on the departure of a few well-known figures is not objective. The Gemini team is thousands of people strong, and the departures of a few key individuals should not be over-interpreted.