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AI meant for breakthroughs now caught in commercial-race: DeepMind CEO
12 Apr 2026

Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, has revealed that his original vision for artificial intelligence (AI) was to use it as a tool for solving major scientific problems.

These include curing diseases like cancer and understanding complex biological processes such as protein folding.

In a recent interview with YouTuber Cleo Abram, he said that he got into AI because he was interested in "all the big questions in the world."

Hassabis views AI as a research instrument
AI as a tool

Hassabis emphasized the need for a tool to help scientists make sense of the vast amount of data and information available.

He said, "In fact, for me, I got into AI in the first place because I was interested in all the big questions in the world....And I felt we needed a tool to help us, even the best scientists, to help us make sense of the amount of data and information out there and find insights."

'We're in a ferocious commercial pressure race'
Industry shift

The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 changed everything. Hassabis said its sudden success changed the entire industry and the pace at which everyone now has to operate.

The Google DeepMind CEO described the current environment as one of "We're in this sort of ferocious commercial pressure race that everyone's locked into currently," with multiple levels of pressure to move fast, including geopolitical issues like the US-China race.

ChatGPT's unexpected success transformed the AI landscape
Unanticipated impact

Hassabis also spoke about how many AI labs, including Google, had ChatGPT-like systems.

He said OpenAI scaled it and released it as a research experiment without realizing its potential for virality.

The DeepMind CEO thinks researchers themselves underestimated the usefulness of their own systems while being aware of their flaws.

Addressing risks and guardrails in advanced AI systems
Future concerns

Looking ahead, Hassabis said the focus is now shifting to risks that are still not fully addressed.

One concern is the misuse of AI by bad actors for harmful purposes.

Even more worrying, he says, is the possibility of systems behaving unpredictably as they become more advanced and autonomous.

He stressed companies working at the frontier need to think carefully about guardrails to ensure AI systems do exactly what they're told.