Google co-founder Brin pushes Deep Mind to accelerate Gemini race
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has urged the company’s key artificial-intelligence teams in recent months to focus fully on developing the Gemini model, as parent company Alphabet seeks to narrow the gap with competitors, according to media reports citing two people familiar with the matter. One anonymous source said Brin spoke at an internal meeting attended by hundreds of employees in April, when Anthropic had taken a lead with a preview of its powerful Claude Mythos model. Brin called on Google DeepMind to speed up development. Google’s Gemini model briefly overtook competitors last November, but new versions subsequently released by Anthropic and OpenAI put Google back in catch-up mode. By August, internal testing showed Gemini still lagged competitors in areas including software coding, prompting Google to delay the launch of its next-generation flagship Gemini model by two months, according to one of the sources and another person familiar with the matter. On Aug. 5, Google announced a sweeping leadership reorganization at Google DeepMind. Demis Hassabis stepped down as head of the division and was replaced by his deputy, Koray Kavukcuoglu. Hassabis became chairman, with reduced management responsibilities. Gemini’s two original technical co-leads also resigned to co-found a startup. Some industry observers have questioned whether Google is pulling out of the large-model race. However, interviews with seven people familiar with Gemini’s development indicated that Alphabet’s commercialization strategy and last week’s personnel reorganization are closely tied to its effort to compete for dominance in the model market.
One anonymous source said Brin spoke at an internal meeting attended by hundreds of employees in April, when Anthropic had taken a lead with a preview of its powerful Claude Mythos model. Brin called on Google DeepMind to speed up development.
Google’s Gemini model briefly overtook competitors last November, but new versions subsequently released by Anthropic and OpenAI put Google back in catch-up mode. By August, internal testing showed Gemini still lagged competitors in areas including software coding, prompting Google to delay the launch of its next-generation flagship Gemini model by two months, according to one of the sources and another person familiar with the matter.
On Aug. 5, Google announced a sweeping leadership reorganization at Google DeepMind. Demis Hassabis stepped down as head of the division and was replaced by his deputy, Koray Kavukcuoglu. Hassabis became chairman, with reduced management responsibilities. Gemini’s two original technical co-leads also resigned to co-found a startup.
Some industry observers have questioned whether Google is pulling out of the large-model race. However, interviews with seven people familiar with Gemini’s development indicated that Alphabet’s commercialization strategy and last week’s personnel reorganization are closely tied to its effort to compete for dominance in the model market.