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Google DeepMind

Alphabet subsidiaryFounded 2010🇬🇧London, United KingdomCEO Koray Kavukcuoglu (SVP, day-to-day operations & Gemini roadmap, reporting to Sundar Pichai); Demis Hassabis moved to Chair of Google DeepMind & Alphabet Chief Scientist on Aug 5, 2026

Google DeepMind is Alphabet's consolidated artificial-intelligence research lab, formed in April 2023 by merging the original DeepMind (founded in London in 2010, acquired by Google in 2014) with Google Brain.

Latest update Oct 19, 2026

01

Overview

Co-founder and Nobel laureate Demis Hassabis stepped down as CEO on August 5, 2026, moving to Chair of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet to focus on long-term AGI research and Isomorphic Labs; Koray Kavukcuoglu, an SVP reporting directly to Sundar Pichai, now runs day-to-day operations and the Gemini roadmap. The lab builds the Gemini family, which powers the Gemini app (1B+ monthly active users as of August 11, 2026), Google Search's AI Mode and AI Overviews, Google Cloud, and, via a 2026 partnership, Apple's next-generation Siri. Gemini 4 Argon (model id gemini-4-argon) opened on October 13, 2026 to the paid Gemini API, Gemini for business, Google AI Ultra, and Google AI Pro subscribers in the Gemini app and AI Mode. The introductory API price is $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens through November 30, 2026, then $4 and $20; API docs say Argon is not on the free tier or the Google AI Pro plan. A Google spokesperson told Reuters, and people familiar with the effort told Bloomberg, on September 30, 2026 that Google no longer plans to release Gemini 3.5 Pro. Gemini 3.8 Flash remains the high-volume workhorse. Isomorphic Labs' September 29, 2026 update describes preclinical work and gearing up for the clinic, with no named candidate and no listed first-in-human study. Project Suncatcher confirmed contact on October 1, 2026; Google said in-orbit TPU health data would come over the following weeks and has not published those results.

blog.googleUpdated Oct 15, 2026

Analysis · 6 min read · Aug 17, 2026The long view on Google DeepMind: strategy, technology and what to watch

02

What's next10

  1. 2026

    Ship Gemini 3.5 Pro

    Target2026 (no confirmed date)

    Complete and launch Gemini 3.5 Pro after it slipped past the I/O 2026 June target, a widely reported July 17 date, and remaining undated through the September 2 Gemini 3.8 Flash launch and the September 15 Gemini 3.8 Live launch. DeepMind's models page still labels 3.5 Pro as coming soon as of September 19, 2026, with Gemini 3.1 Pro remaining the listed Pro option and no API identifier, pricing or model card published. Reported causes have included coding-benchmark shortfalls, hallucination and reliability problems. New operational lead Koray Kavukcuoglu's mandate is to ship faster and close the gap with Anthropic and OpenAI. Gemini 4's pre-training run continues in parallel with no disclosed timeline.

  2. 2026-2027

    Complete Gemini 4 pre-training

    Advance Google's next frontier model generation, Gemini 4, which began its most ambitious pre-training run yet on July 21, 2026 and runs on Google's Ironwood TPUs. Sundar Pichai told analysts on the Q2 2026 earnings call that Gemini 4 needs a larger base model to compete at the frontier, with coding and autonomous agents as stated priorities. As of September 14, 2026 Google has still not confirmed a release date or pre-training completion; Kavukcuoglu said in early September the run is going well, without a window. Outside estimates citing Google's past roughly six-month release cadence continue to point to a possible late-2026 window, but post-training, safety evaluation and product testing could push public availability into 2027.

  3. 2026-2030

    Advance world models and the path to AGI

    Extend Gemini Omni and the Veo/Genie world-model stack toward richer physical simulation, while pursuing the next Gemini generation (Gemini 4, in pre-training since July 21, 2026) on Google's Ironwood TPUs - with Hassabis projecting AGI around 2030 (possibly 2029). Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash went generally available on August 27, 2026 with 4K finishing and scene extension, and Gemini 3.8 Live shipped September 15, 2026 as a real-time audiovisual dialogue surface. An August 10, 2026 Fortune investigation into the causes of Hassabis's step-back as CEO cited low morale, a multi-year talent exodus and repeated model delays as headwinds to that roadmap; DeepMind has since also moved a roughly 90-person AI-responsibility (frontier-risk) team out to Google's Global Affairs organization (effective early September 2026) and begun piloting double-blind third-party evaluations of a Gemini Flash Lite model (announced Aug 27, 2026) as the lab reorganizes around Koray Kavukcuoglu.

  4. 2026

    Open AlphaGenome Atlas to commercial Google Cloud users

    TargetSoon after Sept 2026

    After launching AlphaGenome Atlas on September 8, 2026 as a free academic resource covering about 9 billion DNA variants, DeepMind said commercial access would follow on Google Cloud. Watch whether the Cloud product ships with the same AVI scores, motif maps and API as the research portal.

  5. 2026

    Publish Suncatcher in-orbit Trillium TPU health

    TargetComing weeks after 1 Oct 2026

03

Latest news35

  1. DeepMind flags a peptide candidate with Antigravity

    On Oct. 15, 2026 Google DeepMind said biologists using its Antigravity workbench identified a 97-amino-acid bacteriocin candidate, UniProt A0A0U0D591, from Streptococcus pseudopneumoniae. The company said sequence, structure and genomic-neighborhood checks support that reading, and that this candidate and others from the same pipeline are in wet-lab validation. The post does not report measured antimicrobial activity.

    deepmind.google

  2. Google offers frontier models to 200 European researchers

    On Oct. 14, 2026 Google DeepMind and Google Cloud said they will give up to 200 European scientific researchers direct access to frontier models and $3 million in compute credits through the EU RAISE initiative. The blog names AlphaFold 3, WeatherNext, AlphaGenome, AlphaEvolve, and AlphaEarth Foundations. It does not say how researchers are chosen, when access starts, or how the credits are divided.

    blog.google www.investing.com + Alphabet

  3. OpenAI and Anthropic back binding AI rules in UK hearing

    On Oct. 13, 2026, OpenAI and Anthropic told the UK Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee that some AI safety rules should be legally binding, while Google DeepMind and Meta did not endorse new legislation. Anthropic's Liam Booth-Smith said the rules should be binding and that voluntary commitments are not enough. OpenAI's Tom Duff Gordon said some elements should be mandatory, starting with incident reporting. DeepMind's Owen Larter said the focus should be standards, and Meta's Rob Sherman said existing UK regulators mean the committee is not writing on a blank page.

    www.wired.com parallelparliament.co.uk + OpenAI+ Anthropic+ Meta

  4. Google opens Gemini 4 Argon to paid users

    Google made Gemini 4 Argon available on Oct. 13 through the paid Gemini API, Gemini for business, and the Gemini app and AI Mode for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, after a Sept. 30 rollout limited to Fairwind cyber defenders. Introductory API pricing is $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens through Nov. 30, then $4 and $20. Google said the public model has a 1 million token input-output limit and that Fairwind access is expanding to hundreds more partners.

    blog.google + Alphabet

  5. White House restores UK AISI model access

    The Telegraph reported on Oct. 11 that the White House reversed a September request that US AI developers withhold pre-release models from Britain's AI Security Institute. It said AISI will again get models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind after UK lobbying, and that Anthropic had blocked UK review of Claude Mythos 5.1. Reuters said spokespeople for Trump, OpenAI and Anthropic did not immediately comment.

    www.telegraph.co.uk www.streetinsider.com + OpenAI+ Anthropic

04

Products8

05

Key metrics

Employees
~6,000

The Information separately reported ~5,600 in Aug 2026

Est. annual revenue
No standalone P&L

DeepMind is an Alphabet cost/research center whose output monetizes through Google. Alphabet's Q2 2026 revenue was $119.8B (+24% YoY); Google Cloud - Gemini's primary commercial surface - hit $24.8B (+82% YoY) with a $514.0B backlog. AI infrastructure spend is heavy: Q2 capex was $44.9B, full-year 2026 capex guidance was raised to $195-205B (from $180-190B), and Alphabet posted negative free cash flow (-$5.9B) for the first time as a public company. Still the latest disclosed figures as of Sept 17, 2026, ahead of Alphabet's Q3 2026 report (not yet scheduled).

Gemini App Monthly Active Users
1B+

(disclosed Aug 11, 2026, up from 950M+ at Q2 2026 earnings on Jul 22); daily active users tripled over the past year - still the freshest official figure as of Sept 17, 2026, ahead of Alphabet's Q3 2026 report

AI Overviews / AI Mode Reach
2.5B+ MAU

(AI Overviews); 1B+ MAU (AI Mode, ~1 year after launch) - both figures disclosed at Google I/O in May 2026 remain the freshest official disclosure as of Sept 17, 2026

Monthly Tokens Processed

3.2 quadrillion+ tokens/month across all Google surfaces (I/O 2026, 7x YoY); 22B tokens/minute processed via model APIs as of Q2 2026 earnings (Jul 22, 2026), up from 16B/minute the prior quarter - still the latest disclosure as of Sept 17, 2026, ahead of Alphabet's Q3 2026 report

AlphaFold Researchers
3M+ across 190 countries

200M+ structures (AlphaFold Server and Protein Structure Database remain live as of Sept 14, 2026 despite the July 2026 dissolution of the dedicated AlphaFold research team)

Nobel Prize
2024 Chemistry

(Hassabis & Jumper, AlphaFold2 protein-structure prediction; shared with David Baker for computational protein design). Re-verified Sept 14, 2026 against the Nobel Foundation press release; still the lab's only Nobel. Jumper left DeepMind for Anthropic in June 2026; Hassabis remains Chair of Google DeepMind and Alphabet Chief Scientist.

Employees
~6,000

(DeepMind headcount per PitchBook; The Information separately reported ~5,600 in Aug 2026, up from 2,500 two years earlier); no single official DeepMind figure disclosed, and no fresher third-party estimate found as of Sept 17, 2026. Parent Alphabet's total headcount reached 198,933 as of Jun 30, 2026, up ~11,830 YoY

Current Flagship Model
Gemini 4 Argon

(gemini-4-argon) opened Oct. 13, 2026 as the public frontier model: paid API introductory $2/$10 per million tokens through Nov. 30, 2026, then $4/$20; not on the free tier or Google AI Pro API plan; Pro and Ultra subscribers get it in the Gemini app and AI Mode. Gemini 3.8 Flash remains the high-volume workhorse (shipped Sept. 2, 2026). Reuters and Bloomberg reported on Sept. 30, 2026 that Google no longer plans to release Gemini 3.5 Pro. DeepMind's Pro page presents Gemini 3.1 Pro.

Alphabet market cap (parent)

About $4.21T as of September 25, 2026 close

Alphabet market cap (parent)
About $4.19T as of 28 Sep 2026 close
Alphabet market cap (parent)
About $4.20T as of 2 Oct 2026 close

06

Operations & revenue

Operating status

Antigravity peptide candidate in wet-lab tests

On Oct. 15, 2026 DeepMind said biologists using Antigravity identified bacteriocin candidate UniProt A0A0U0D591, a 97-amino-acid sequence from Streptococcus pseudopneumoniae, and that this candidate and others from the same pipeline are in wet-lab validation. The post cites sequence, structure and genomic-neighborhood checks and does not report measured antimicrobial activity.

Revenue streams

  • Gemini API & Google Cloud (Vertex AI)

    Usage-based access to the Gemini model family for developers and enterprises via the Gemini API, Google AI Studio and Vertex AI - a primary driver of Google Cloud, whose GenAI-model revenue grew nearly 800% YoY into Q1 2026.

  • Gemini consumer subscriptions (Google AI Pro / Ultra)

    Paid consumer tiers bundled into Google One AI plans (Google AI Pro and Ultra) that unlock higher limits and the most capable Gemini models across the Gemini app, NotebookLM and Workspace.

  • Gemini in Search, Workspace & Android

    Gemini powers Google's largest products - AI Mode and AI Overviews in Search, Workspace features, and Android/Pixel - reinforcing Alphabet's core advertising and device businesses rather than billing directly.

  • Model licensing & partnerships (incl. Isomorphic)

    Platform partnerships such as powering Apple's next-generation Siri, plus pharma collaborations run through the Isomorphic Labs spinout (Eli Lilly and Novartis deals valued near $3B) that apply DeepMind science to drug discovery.

07

Track record

How past announced dates turned out.

2/2announced dates hit on time

  • 2 Hit
  • 0 Slipped
  • 0 Missed
  1. Hit

    Open Gemini 4 Argon to paid API and Google AI Ultra

    Target No public date (after Fairwind) · Resolved Oct 13, 2026

    Google opened Gemini 4 Argon on Oct. 13, 2026 to the paid API (model id gemini-4-argon), Gemini for business, Google AI Ultra, and Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app and AI Mode. Introductory price is $2/$10 per million tokens through Nov. 30, 2026. API docs exclude the free tier and the Google AI Pro plan. The Oct. 13 safety post and model card are published.

  2. Hit

    Fly Suncatcher TPU prototype on SpaceX Transporter-18

    Target October 1, 2026 currently scheduled (Space.com); Google said next week from Sept 24 · Resolved Oct 1, 2026

    SpaceX Transporter-18 launched 1 Oct 2026. Google Research confirmed the Planet-built Suncatcher prototype reached orbit, made contact, and was operating as expected. Detailed Trillium TPU health remains a later in-orbit data collection.

08

Timeline49

  1. 2026

    1. Antigravity flags a bacteriocin candidate

      On Oct. 15, 2026 DeepMind said Antigravity identified bacteriocin candidate UniProt A0A0U0D591, 97 amino acids, from Streptococcus pseudopneumoniae. The company said it and other pipeline candidates are in wet-lab validation and did not report measured activity.

    2. Offers frontier models to European researchers

      On Oct. 14, 2026 Google DeepMind and Google Cloud said they will give up to 200 European scientific researchers direct access to frontier models and $3 million in compute credits through the EU RAISE initiative. Named tools include AlphaFold 3, WeatherNext, AlphaGenome, AlphaEvolve, and AlphaEarth Foundations. Selection, start date, and the credit split were not stated.

    3. Spokesperson and Bloomberg say Gemini 3.5 Pro will not ship

      On Sept. 30, 2026 a Google spokesperson told Reuters that Google no longer plans to release Gemini 3.5 Pro, which Sundar Pichai had said would be released in June. The same day Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the effort, that Google had abandoned 3.5 Pro after the June target passed. Channel NewsAsia carried the Reuters report on Oct. 1. DeepMind's Pro page, read Oct. 15, presents Gemini 3.1 Pro. The unhashed next step Ship Gemini 3.5 Pro still says the model is coming soon and was left unadopted.

    4. Tells UK MPs to focus on AI standards

      On Oct. 13, 2026 Owen Larter told the Commons Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee that, asked about a statutory framework, the focus should be on standards. WIRED reported he did not endorse new legislation.

    5. Opens Gemini 4 Argon to paid users and developers

      On Oct. 13, 2026 Google made Gemini 4 Argon available on the paid Gemini API, in Gemini for business, and to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app and AI Mode, after a Sept. 30 release limited to Fairwind cyber defenders. Introductory API pricing is $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens through Nov. 30, then $4 and $20.

    6. Telegraph says UK AISI regains DeepMind access

      The Telegraph reported Oct. 11 that UK AISI will again get pre-release models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind after the White House reversed a September hold. Reuters asked Trump, OpenAI and Anthropic for comment and received none; it did not separately quote DeepMind.

    7. Google Cloud launches Gemini agent at Gemini at Work

      On Oct. 8, 2026 Google Cloud announced the Gemini agent at Gemini at Work 2026 as a universal agent for work that plans tasks, uses skills and tools, connects to business systems, and chooses the best model. Googles consumer blog dated the launch Oct. 8. TechCrunch, reporting the event, said Sundar Pichai put Gemini at over 1 billion monthly active users and nearly 90 percent of Fortune 100 businesses on Gemini Enterprise; the agent starts with businesses before consumers; users can pick models including Anthropic Claude, with open-source and private models later. Early testers included On, Shopify, and PayPal. Googles Sept. 30 Argon post still rolls first to Fairwind cyber defenders, then paid API customers and Google AI Ultra, with no public date. This is an enterprise agent surface, not a public Gemini 4 Argon API.

    8. Opens SynthID Detector to the public

      On Oct. 7, 2026 Google DeepMind made SynthID Detector available globally in English for images, video, and audio from Google and named partners including OpenAI, Nvidia, and Kakao, with Apple listed as coming soon. Google said it has watermarked more than 180 billion images and videos and 240,000 years of audio.

09

Funding

$2.7Bdisclosed across 4 rounds with a stated amount

Cumulative disclosed raise · dated rounds

$1B$2B$3B20142017202020232026$2.7B raised
  1. Google acquisition

    Jan 2014

    ~$400–650M (reported)

    Google (now Alphabet)

  2. Alphabet internal funding (ongoing)

    2014–present

    Funded via Alphabet R&D; parent capex guided to $180–190B for 2026

    Alphabet Inc.

  3. Isomorphic Labs Series A (DeepMind spinout)

    Mar 2025

    $600M

    Thrive Capital (lead), GV, Alphabet

  4. Isomorphic Labs Series B (DeepMind spinout)

    May 2026

    ~$2.1B

    External investors and Alphabet

All AI Labs