HireAug 5, 2026, 22:23 UTC

Koray Kavukcuoglu Takes Operational Control of Gemini

What’s the deal? A 31 July 2025 profile by Koray Kavukcuoglu’s colleagues describes him as the operational fixer behind Alphabet | Google’s AI effort. He was the chief technology officer of Google DeepMind and, in June 2025, was appointed Google’s first chief AI architect, reporting to Sundar Pichai as well as Demis Hassabis.

Mandate: Kavukcuoglu was tasked with putting Gemini across Google’s products while improving iteration speed and efficiency. His remit included unifying model training, introducing AI tools for internal engineering, allocating computer chips, planning data centres and coordinating with product and cloud leadership. The article says Google moved roughly 200 Gemini-training staff in Search, including Srinivasan Venkatachary, into his reporting line alongside Search chief Liz Reid.

Why it matters: The appointment came as Google weighed whether Search and Gemini should remain separate products or become more tightly integrated, while Meta recruited researchers for its new Superintelligence Labs. The article also notes the legal pressure around Google’s Search monopoly, including requests by the U.S. Department of Justice and other plaintiffs concerning Chrome and publishers’ ability to opt out of AI training.

Background: Kavukcuoglu moved into AI after working as an R&D engineer at Roketsan in Turkey and enrolling at New York University. Under Yann LeCun, he completed a computer-science doctorate in 2010. He then worked at NEC Laboratories America before joining DeepMind in 2012, two years before Google acquired it. He subsequently rose from research scientist to research director and vice president of research.

Gemini execution: Following Google’s April 2023 merger of Google Brain and DeepMind into Google DeepMind, Kavukcuoglu became a programme lead for Gemini alongside Demis Hassabis. Jeff Dean and Oriol Vinyals led the technical direction, while Kavukcuoglu coordinated the teams, headcount and budget needed to turn that vision into a working model. The article says his organisation grew from roughly 1,600 staff and 18 direct reports in March 2025 to about 2,100 staff and 21 direct reports by July.

Operating model: Google DeepMind aimed to provide one generative AI model that Google’s product teams could use largely out of the box, rather than having each team fine-tune its own version. Gemini’s chatbot began using models from Kavukcuoglu’s central post-training team in March 2025. He also moved full time from London to Mountain View as Google centralised more AI activity, and met regularly with senior vice presidents and Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud.

Leadership style and constraints: Colleagues described Kavukcuoglu as technically fluent, benchmark-focused and effective at aligning large teams, though his control over project approval, headcount and resources could create friction. He was generally viewed as accessible by researchers. The article frames his role as a response to the product pressure created by OpenAI’s ChatGPT launch in November 2022: Google had developed much of the underlying research but had not yet translated it into a product at comparable speed.

Subsequent context: In August 2026, Demis Hassabis became Chair of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet, with Kavukcuoglu taking day-to-day operational responsibility for Gemini; Sergey Brin was reported to be taking direct oversight of Gemini strategy and product direction.

Koray Kavukcuoglu Takes Operational Control of Gemini

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