Banks to offload $15bn of debt for Anthropic data centre backed by Google

On 5 August 2026, Google announced a shake-up of its AI leadership in the United States. Demis Hassabis stepped aside as CEO of Google DeepMind and took a new AI role. Jeff Dean left Google, and four top AI researchers, reportedly including him, left to launch their own AI startup.

Google's London AI lab came under tighter company control as its British founder stepped back. Alphabet shares fell noticeably after the announcement.