Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis has described the current artificial intelligence race as the most intense period the technology industry has ever experienced, according to feedback he’s received from long-time industry leaders.
Speaking on CNBC’s The Tech Download podcast, Hassabis said senior executives with 20 to 30 years of experience in tech have told him that today’s AI competition is unmatched in its speed, scale, and stakes.
“A Ferocious Competitive Environment”
Hassabis said the AI landscape has become fiercely competitive as Google faces pressure from rivals including OpenAI, Amazon, Anthropic, Perplexity, and others.
“It’s a ferocious competitive environment at the moment,” he said, describing DeepMind as the engine room of Google’s AI strategy.
DeepMind, the UK-based research lab acquired by Google in 2014 for around £400 million, now plays a central role in enabling Google to roll out AI products across its ecosystem at speed.
Google’s Challenge Wasn’t Innovation It Was Speed
Despite Google’s early leadership in AI research, Hassabis acknowledged that the company struggled to commercialize and scale its breakthroughs quickly enough.
Key technologies such as transformers, which underpin modern large language models, were originally developed by Google researchers. However, Hassabis said competitors like OpenAI moved faster to bring these innovations to market.
“That’s what OpenAI and others did very well,” he said. “We had to rediscover our startup mindset move faster, ship quickly, and make rapid progress.”
How Google Found Its Rhythm Again
Hassabis said Google began regaining momentum with the launch of Gemini 2.5 in March 2025, followed by Gemini 3 in November 2025, which earned praise from tech leaders and users for its performance and speed.
The Gemini models developed at DeepMind are now being integrated rapidly across Google products, including search, as internal processes have become smoother.
“For the last year, that’s become a really streamlined process,” Hassabis said, adding that more acceleration is expected over the next 12 months.
DeepMind’s Growing Influence Inside Google
Hassabis emphasized that DeepMind is now deeply embedded in Google’s strategic decision-making. He said he speaks with Google CEO Sundar Pichai nearly every day, discussing priorities, product roadmaps, and where AI technology should be directed.
These conversations can lead to daily adjustments in strategy while maintaining a long-term focus on the industry’s ultimate goal: artificial general intelligence (AGI) AI systems with human-level intelligence.
Hassabis said the ambition remains to achieve AGI “first, fast, and safely.”
From ChatGPT Shock to AI Arms Race
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, Google was widely seen as being on the back foot. Product missteps in subsequent years reinforced perceptions that the company was struggling to keep up.
However, the rebound in Alphabet’s stock in 2025 its strongest performance since 2009 signaled renewed investor confidence that Google could compete in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
Why This Matters
Hassabis’s comments highlight how the AI race has transformed into a full-scale industry battle, reshaping priorities even at the world’s largest technology companies. As competition accelerates, speed of execution may now matter as much as research leadership.
