Shares in Alphabet (GOOGL) tumbled on Wednesday after the company announced a major shift in leadership of its AI technology branch. The company’s DeepMind organization announced that its CEO, Demis Hassabis, is transitioning to a new role as chair of DeepMind and chief scientist for all of Alphabet. GOOGL stock fell sharply to $362.11, a near -5 % decline on Wednesday.

DeepMind CTO and Google chief AI architect Koray Kavukcuoglu will step into the role of senior vice president for DeepMind and report directly to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Alphabet (GOOGL) stock has seen plenty of movement in recent months, so the sharp shift in share price isn’t viewed as a huge catalyst, according to numerous Wall Street experts. AI, however, has become a focal point in Google’s and its parent company Alphabet’s revenue stream in the past year. Therefore, the sudden change in leadership in that department is a flag that investors will closely monitor as Kavukcuoglu settles into his new role.

In addition to those moves, Google chief scientist Jeff Dean, along with Google senior fellow Sanjay Ghemawat, are leaving the company and founding their own independent public benefit corporation called Discovery Loop. In a post on X, Dean said Discovery Loop’s mission is to “automate machine learning, science, and engineering to accelerate discoveries and progress.”

Furthermore, the Google shakeup comes at a critical time for Alphabet. Indeed, Google is facing some difficulties with its latest Gemini model. According to Bloomberg, the company delayed its Gemini 3.5 Pro in July in an effort to improve its capabilities in areas like coding. During its latest earnings report, the company increased its planned capital expenditures for the year to between $195 billion and $205 billion, up from its prior estimate of $180 billion to $190 billion. Analysts were expecting $186.4 billion.