{"id":"koray-kavukcuoglu","hidden":false,"ipfs":"Qmf7cHiRN2bXTTwnZj2CYN3BWxyfvHZEDSXo2P3PxY6JXF","language":"en","transactionHash":"0x0867b9a76cdc871dc563ea918e1fdc84a83e415084f6edaf38d72d4c62e6b7be","created":"2025-08-01T14:40:42.452Z","updated":"2026-08-10T14:22:57.278Z","title":"Koray Kavukcuoglu","summary":"Koray Kavukcuoglu is an AI researcher and executive serving as Senior Vice President of Google DeepMind and Google's Chief AI Architect. He oversees Gemini model development, frontier AI research, the Gemini app and developer teams.","content":"**Koray Kavukcuoglu** is an artificial intelligence researcher and executive who serves as Senior Vice President of Google DeepMind and Chief AI Architect at Google. He is known for his work on deep learning and reinforcement learning at Google DeepMind, including contributions to research associated with Deep Q-Networks (DQN) and WaveNet, with Google crediting him for establishing DeepMind’s deep learning team.[[3]](#cite-id-c7dc5b6e-9dff-4f8e-a5cc-6870200d59c2)[[6]](#cite-id-9df4708f-58db-4d10-a082-601031b2199e) In August 2026, he assumed day-to-day leadership of Google DeepMind, reporting directly to Sundar Pichai and overseeing Gemini model development, frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams.[[3]](#cite-id-c7dc5b6e-9dff-4f8e-a5cc-6870200d59c2)[[4]](#cite-id-f3e1c30e-7409-49da-9727-a9df59e243a1)[[5]](#cite-id-550b99ab-3273-4cd3-9187-c506143111b9) \n\n [YOUTUBE@VID](https://youtube.com/watch?v=STMN5N-bDko)\n\n## Education\n\nKavukcuoglu studied aerospace engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU), where he completed undergraduate and graduate studies. His 2003 master's thesis examined wing flutter analysis. He later completed a PhD in Computer Science at New York University under Yann LeCun. His dissertation, *Learning Feature Hierarchies for Object Recognition*, was submitted in January 2011.[[9]](#cite-id-44d7b124-04f6-41ed-8f0d-6ec50c1f1fc1)[[10]](#cite-id-f57a9052-49a3-42a4-9da9-c70898ad5f1d)[[11]](#cite-id-75112fe9-8397-4373-8b59-db88276ff3a2) \n\n [YOUTUBE@VID](https://youtube.com/watch?v=N5oZIO8pE40) \n\n## Career\nAfter completing his PhD, Kavukcuoglu worked as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at New York University before moving to industry as a Research Scientist at NEC Laboratories America from 2011 to 2012. His earlier engineering roles included working as a Software and Control Engineer at Roketsan from September 2001 to September 2002 and an internship at Siemens in 2000.[[2]](#cite-id-dtwtb6GC5h)​\n\nKavukcuoglu joined DeepMind in 2012 as a research scientist after his time at NEC Laboratories America and later held research leadership positions including Director of Research, Vice President of Research, and, from January 2024, Chief Technology Officer of Google DeepMind.[[7]](#cite-id-95b5e8e9-853b-4341-920c-5e996a988aa3)[[8]](#cite-id-29be918b-e2bf-4bd5-826e-05db4b3eeed2)[[6]](#cite-id-9df4708f-58db-4d10-a082-601031b2199e) Google credits him with establishing DeepMind’s deep learning team and contributing to research associated with Deep Q-Networks (DQN), a deep reinforcement learning algorithm that learned to play [Atari](https://iq.wiki/wiki/atari) games directly from pixels, and WaveNet, a generative model for raw audio.[[3]](#cite-id-c7dc5b6e-9dff-4f8e-a5cc-6870200d59c2)[[6]](#cite-id-9df4708f-58db-4d10-a082-601031b2199e) \n\nIn June 2025, while serving as Chief Technology Officer of Google DeepMind, Kavukcuoglu was appointed Google’s first Chief AI Architect, a new senior vice president role reporting directly to CEO Sundar Pichai and focused on accelerating the integration of Gemini models into Google products.[[1]](#cite-id-xUvCrtbSvG)[[8]](#cite-id-29be918b-e2bf-4bd5-826e-05db4b3eeed2)[[7]](#cite-id-95b5e8e9-853b-4341-920c-5e996a988aa3) In August 2026, he became Senior Vice President of Google DeepMind and assumed its day-to-day leadership after Demis Hassabis moved to the roles of Chair of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet. In this capacity, Kavukcuoglu reports directly to Pichai and oversees Gemini model development, frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams.[[3]](#cite-id-c7dc5b6e-9dff-4f8e-a5cc-6870200d59c2)[[4]](#cite-id-f3e1c30e-7409-49da-9727-a9df59e243a1)[[5]](#cite-id-550b99ab-3273-4cd3-9187-c506143111b9)[[6]](#cite-id-9df4708f-58db-4d10-a082-601031b2199e) \n\n [YOUTUBE@VID](https://youtube.com/watch?v=dIPdY541vus)\n\n## Research and Contributions\nKavukcuoglu’s research centers on deep learning, reinforcement learning, and representation learning, with an emphasis on learning hierarchical feature representations for perception tasks.[[11]](#cite-id-75112fe9-8397-4373-8b59-db88276ff3a2) His doctoral work at New York University focused on convolutional and energy-based models for object recognition, exploring how multilayer neural networks can automatically learn useful visual features from data.[[11]](#cite-id-75112fe9-8397-4373-8b59-db88276ff3a2)\n\nAt DeepMind, Google credits him with helping to establish the organization’s deep learning team and contributing to research associated with Deep Q-Networks (DQN), which demonstrated deep reinforcement learning agents that learned to play [Atari](https://iq.wiki/wiki/atari) 2600 games directly from pixels, and WaveNet, a generative model for raw audio that underpinned later speech synthesis systems.[[3]](#cite-id-c7dc5b6e-9dff-4f8e-a5cc-6870200d59c2) His publication record spans academic work from his NYU period and applied research at DeepMind, including co-authored papers in machine learning and computer vision venues that document these advances in deep learning and reinforcement learning.[[11]](#cite-id-75112fe9-8397-4373-8b59-db88276ff3a2)","recentActivity":"{\"items\":[{\"id\":\"806deb11-a3d6-43f2-a576-9954382150cd\",\"title\":\"Koray Kavukcuoglu\",\"description\":\"Koray Kavukcuoglu is an AI researcher and executive serving as Senior Vice President of Google DeepMind and Google's Chief AI Architect. He oversees Gemini model development, frontier AI research, the Gemini app and developer teams.\",\"timestamp\":\"2026-08-10T14:22:21.934Z\",\"category\":\"People in crypto\",\"status\":{\"icon\":\"RiGlobalLine\",\"label\":\"Wiki Updated\",\"iconClassName\":\"text-green-500\"},\"user\":{\"name\":\"0x8AF7a19a26d8FBC48dEfB35AEfb15Ec8c407f889\",\"address\":\"0x1E23b34d3106F0C1c74D17f2Cd0F65cdb039b138\"},\"button\":{\"label\":\"View Summary\",\"icon\":\"RiFileTextLine\"},\"summarySections\":[{\"title\":\"Title\",\"subtitle\":\"Page title was changed\",\"variant\":\"modified\",\"changeCount\":1,\"changes\":[\"Changed title from \\\"people\\\" to \\\"People in crypto\\\"\"]},{\"title\":\"Intro (lead)\",\"subtitle\":\"Introductory paragraph replaced and expanded to reflect new roles and August 2026 leadership change\",\"variant\":\"modified\",\"changeCount\":2,\"changes\":[\"Removed previous intro that described him as \\\"Google's AI Architect\\\" (older text removed).\",\"Added new intro stating he \\\"serves as Senior Vice President of Google DeepMind and Chief AI Architect at Google\\\" and that \\\"in August 2026, he assumed day-to-day leadership of Google DeepMind, with responsibility for Gemini model development, frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams.\\\" [[5]](#cite-id-c7dc5b6e-9dff-4f8e-a5cc-6870200d59c2) [[6]](#cite-id-f3e1c30e-7409-49da-9727-a9df59e243a1)\"]},{\"title\":\"Education\",\"subtitle\":\"Education section content updated and expanded\",\"variant\":\"modified\",\"changeCount\":2,\"changes\":[\"Removed earlier education wording that listed degrees from Boğaziçi University and NYU (older text removed).\",\"Added education details stating he studied aerospace engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU), completed a 2003 M.S. thesis on wing flutter analysis, and completed a PhD in Computer Science at NYU under Yann LeCun (dissertation submitted January 2011). [[11]](#cite-id-44d7b124-04f6-41ed-8f0d-6ec50c1f1fc1) [[12]](#cite-id-f57a9052-49a3-42a4-9da9-c70898ad5f1d) [[13]](#cite-id-75112fe9-8397-4373-8b59-db88276ff3a2)\"]},{\"title\":\"Career\",\"subtitle\":\"Career section reorganized and expanded with new appointments and timeline clarifications\",\"variant\":\"modified\",\"changeCount\":5,\"changes\":[\"Removed older career paragraphs that emphasized the June 2025 appointment as Senior Vice President, AI Architect and earlier DeepMind tenure (older text removed).\",\"Added statement that in June 2025 he was appointed Google’s Chief AI Architect (a senior vice president role reporting to Sundar Pichai). [[2]](#cite-id-xUvCrtbSvG) [[9]](#cite-id-95b5e8e9-853b-4341-920c-5e996a988aa3)\",\"Added that in August 2026 he became Senior Vice President of Google DeepMind and assumed day-to-day leadership after Demis Hassabis moved to Chair/Chief Scientist roles, and that he oversees Gemini model development, frontier AI research, the Gemini app, and developer teams. [[5]](#cite-id-c7dc5b6e-9dff-4f8e-a5cc-6870200d59c2) [[6]](#cite-id-f3e1c30e-7409-49da-9727-a9df59e243a1) [[7]](#cite-id-550b99ab-3273-4cd3-9187-c506143111b9) [[8]](#cite-id-9df4708f-58db-4d10-a082-601031b2199e)\",\"Added/clarified that he joined DeepMind in 2012 as a researcher (replacing earlier 2014 date) and subsequently held research leadership positions including Vice President of Research and CTO of Google DeepMind. [[9]](#cite-id-95b5e8e9-853b-4341-920c-5e996a988aa3) [[10]](#cite-id-29be918b-e2bf-4bd5-826e-05db4b3eeed2)\",\"Added mention of his earlier roles (Postdoctoral Research Scientist at NYU, Research Scientist at NEC Labs America, Software and Control Engineer at Roketsan, internship at Siemens) with supporting reference. [[3]](#cite-id-dtwtb6GC5h)\"]},{\"title\":\"YouTube / embedded media items\",\"subtitle\":\"Embeds had thumbnail and caption fields removed and new size/type fields set to null\",\"variant\":\"modified\",\"changeCount\":3,\"changes\":[\"Removed empty caption fields for three YouTube embeds (captions were \\\"\\\").\",\"Removed thumbnail URLs for three embeds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIPdY541vus, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STMN5N-bDko, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5oZIO8pE40.\",\"Added/changed media item properties: added \\\"type\\\": null and \\\"size\\\": null for those items (replacing previous thumbnail/caption entries).\"]},{\"title\":\"Speakers\",\"subtitle\":\"Speakers field removed\",\"variant\":\"removed\",\"changeCount\":1,\"changes\":[\"Removed empty \\\"speakers\\\": [] field\"]},{\"title\":\"References\",\"subtitle\":\"References list was expanded with multiple new primary and independent sources\",\"variant\":\"modified\",\"changeCount\":10,\"changes\":[\"Replaced previous references list value with an expanded list. Added the following reference entries (id — url — description):\",\"- c7dc5b6e-9dff-4f8e-a5cc-6870200d59c2 — https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/next-chapter-ai-momentum/ — Google — “The next chapter of our AI momentum” (primary source for August 2026 leadership change).\",\"- f3e1c30e-7409-49da-9727-a9df59e243a1 — https://www.reuters.com/business/google-shakes-up-ai-leadership-deepmind-chief-shifts-role-2026-08-05/ — Reuters — independent confirmation of day-to-day responsibilities at DeepMind.\",\"- 550b99ab-3273-4cd3-9187-c506143111b9 — https://www.inc.com/georgia-fearn/google-put-one-executive-in-charge-of-gemini-after-eight-prominent-researchers-leave/91385451 — Inc. — confirms responsibilities across frontier research, Gemini models, app and developer teams.\",\"- 9df4708f-58db-4d10-a082-601031b2199e — https://www.edtechinnovationhub.com/news/e6jbqlsiv0bte7hruv5sgk6z41k29e — additional coverage of leadership transition.\",\"- 95b5e8e9-853b-4341-920c-5e996a988aa3 — https://www.turkiyetoday.com/business/google-puts-turkish-ai-executive-kavukcuoglu-in-charge-of-gemini-3225500 — Türkiye Today — covers 2026 appointment and earlier career/education.\",\"- 29be918b-e2bf-4bd5-826e-05db4b3eeed2 — https://www.semafor.com/article/06/11/2025/google-names-new-chief-ai-architect-to-advance-developments — Semafor — useful for 2025 appointment and 2012 DeepMind start date.\",\"- 44d7b124-04f6-41ed-8f0d-6ec50c1f1fc1 — https://adayogrenci-ae.metu.edu.tr/index.html — METU aerospace engineering alumni profile (education source).\",\"- f57a9052-49a3-42a4-9da9-c70898ad5f1d — https://open.metu.edu.tr/handle/11511/13518 — OpenMETU record for 2003 M.S. thesis.\",\"- 75112fe9-8397-4373-8b59-db88276ff3a2 — https://cs.nyu.edu/media/publications/kavukcuoglu_koray.pdf — NYU PhD dissertation (confirms PhD details).\"]},{\"title\":\"Summary\",\"subtitle\":\"Top-level summary text updated\",\"variant\":\"modified\",\"changeCount\":1,\"changes\":[\"Replaced old summary \\\"Koray Kavukcuoglu is a prominent researcher in artificial intelligence. As of July 2025, he serves as Google's AI Architect, focusing on the widespread implementation of the Gemini AI model.\\\" with new summary: \\\"Koray Kavukcuoglu is an AI researcher and executive serving as Senior Vice President of Google DeepMind and Google's Chief AI Architect. He oversees Gemini model development, frontier AI research, the Gemini app and developer teams.\\\"\"]},{\"title\":\"Tags / tag-like metadata\",\"subtitle\":\"Tags array changed: some tags removed, new tags added, and several tag-style metadata entries were added\",\"variant\":\"modified\",\"changeCount\":6,\"changes\":[\"Removed tag id \\\"AI\\\".\",\"Removed tag id \\\"PeopleInDeFi\\\".\",\"Removed tag id \\\"Developers\\\".\",\"Added tag id \\\"Developer\\\".\",\"Added tag id \\\"Researcher\\\".\",\"Added tag-like metadata entries: {id: \\\"words-changed\\\", value: \\\"6\\\"}, {id: \\\"percent-changed\\\", value: \\\"8.64\\\"}, {id: \\\"blocks-changed\\\", value: \\\"content, tags, summary\\\"}, and {id: \\\"wiki-score\\\", value: \\\"54\\\"}\"]}]}]}","operator":{"id":"0x1E23b34d3106F0C1c74D17f2Cd0F65cdb039b138"},"categories":[{"id":"people","title":"People in 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Director of Research at DeepMind","date":"2018-03-01","type":"DEFAULT","description":"Koray Kavukcuoglu is promoted to Director of Research at DeepMind.","link":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/koray-kavukcuoglu-0439a720/details/experience/","country":"United Kingdom","continent":"Europe","multiDateStart":null,"multiDateEnd":null,"id":"81431470-911b-44cf-b600-214898243ccb"},{"title":"Promoted to Vice President of Research at DeepMind","date":"2019-03-01","type":"DEFAULT","description":"Koray Kavukcuoglu becomes Vice President of Research at DeepMind.","link":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/koray-kavukcuoglu-0439a720/details/experience/","country":"United Kingdom","continent":"Europe","multiDateStart":null,"multiDateEnd":null,"id":"c55af5f6-6daf-4043-b25e-9da8f1dd3e40"},{"title":"Appointed Chief Technology Officer of Google DeepMind","date":"2024-01-01","type":"DEFAULT","description":"Koray Kavukcuoglu is appointed Chief Technology Officer of Google DeepMind.","link":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/koray-kavukcuoglu-0439a720/details/experience/","country":"United Kingdom","continent":"Europe","multiDateStart":null,"multiDateEnd":null,"id":"ad4b89f3-9241-433a-a3cf-39fde2e87991"},{"title":"Named Google’s first Chief AI Architect","date":"2025-06-01","type":"DEFAULT","description":"Koray Kavukcuoglu is named Google’s first Chief AI Architect, a senior vice president role reporting to CEO Sundar Pichai.","link":"https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/11/google-kavukcuoglu-chief-ai-architect.html","country":"United States","continent":"North America","multiDateStart":null,"multiDateEnd":null,"id":"a8d55b5f-cba4-4e3a-be27-b70214eebf9e"},{"title":"Becomes SVP of Google DeepMind","date":"2026-08-01","type":"DEFAULT","description":"Koray Kavukcuoglu becomes Senior Vice President of Google DeepMind and takes on day-to-day leadership of the unit.","link":"https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/next-chapter-ai-momentum/","country":"United States","continent":"North America","multiDateStart":null,"multiDateEnd":null,"id":"8679a84f-b962-4f3f-9815-12c162987030"}],"founderWikis":[],"blockchainWikis":[],"metadata":[{"id":"linkedin_profile","value":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/koray-kavukcuoglu-0439a720/"},{"id":"twitter_profile","value":"https://x.com/koraykv"},{"id":"references","value":"[{\"id\":\"xUvCrtbSvG\",\"url\":\"https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/11/google-kavukcuoglu-chief-ai-architect.html\",\"description\":\"CNBC report on new AI architect role\",\"timestamp\":1754053199528},{\"id\":\"dtwtb6GC5h\",\"url\":\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/koray-kavukcuoglu-0439a720/details/experience/\",\"description\":\"Koray Kavukcuoglu's LinkedIn Profile\",\"timestamp\":1754057389956},{\"id\":\"c7dc5b6e-9dff-4f8e-a5cc-6870200d59c2\",\"url\":\"https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/next-chapter-ai-momentum/\",\"description\":\"Google — “The next chapter of our AI momentum” — primary source for the August 2026 leadership change, reporting structure and responsibilities.\",\"timestamp\":1786371325749},{\"id\":\"f3e1c30e-7409-49da-9727-a9df59e243a1\",\"url\":\"https://www.reuters.com/business/google-shakes-up-ai-leadership-deepmind-chief-shifts-role-2026-08-05/\",\"description\":\"Reuters — “Google shakes up AI leadership as DeepMind chief shifts role” — independent confirmation that Kavukcuoglu assumed day-to-day responsibilities at Google DeepMind.\",\"timestamp\":1786371325749},{\"id\":\"550b99ab-3273-4cd3-9187-c506143111b9\",\"url\":\"https://www.inc.com/georgia-fearn/google-put-one-executive-in-charge-of-gemini-after-eight-prominent-researchers-leave/91385451\",\"description\":\"Inc. — “Google Just Put 1 Executive in Charge of Gemini After 8 Prominent Researchers Left in 2 Months” — confirms his responsibility across frontier research, Gemini models, the Gemini app and developer teams.\",\"timestamp\":1786371325749},{\"id\":\"9df4708f-58db-4d10-a082-601031b2199e\",\"url\":\"https://www.edtechinnovationhub.com/news/e6jbqlsiv0bte7hruv5sgk6z41k29e\",\"description\":\"EdTech Innovation Hub — “Demis Hassabis hands Google DeepMind’s day-to-day leadership to Koray Kavukcuoglu” — additional coverage of the leadership transition and Kavukcuoglu's remit.\",\"timestamp\":1786371325749},{\"id\":\"95b5e8e9-853b-4341-920c-5e996a988aa3\",\"url\":\"https://www.turkiyetoday.com/business/google-puts-turkish-ai-executive-kavukcuoglu-in-charge-of-gemini-3225500\",\"description\":\"Türkiye Today — “Google puts Turkish AI executive Kavukcuoglu in charge of Gemini” — covers the 2026 appointment as well as his earlier career and education.\",\"timestamp\":1786371325749},{\"id\":\"29be918b-e2bf-4bd5-826e-05db4b3eeed2\",\"url\":\"https://www.semafor.com/article/06/11/2025/google-names-new-chief-ai-architect-to-advance-developments\",\"description\":\"Semafor — “Google names new chief AI architect to advance developments” — useful for the 2025 Chief AI Architect appointment and the 2012 DeepMind start date.\",\"timestamp\":1786371325749},{\"id\":\"44d7b124-04f6-41ed-8f0d-6ec50c1f1fc1\",\"url\":\"https://adayogrenci-ae.metu.edu.tr/index.html\",\"description\":\"Middle East Technical University Aerospace Engineering — alumni profile — official university source confirming his aerospace-engineering education.\",\"timestamp\":1786371325749},{\"id\":\"f57a9052-49a3-42a4-9da9-c70898ad5f1d\",\"url\":\"https://open.metu.edu.tr/handle/11511/13518\",\"description\":\"OpenMETU — “Wing flutter analysis with an uncoupled method” — official university repository record for Kavukcuoglu's 2003 M.S. thesis.\",\"timestamp\":1786371325749},{\"id\":\"75112fe9-8397-4373-8b59-db88276ff3a2\",\"url\":\"https://cs.nyu.edu/media/publications/kavukcuoglu_koray.pdf\",\"description\":\"New York University — “Learning Feature Hierarchies for Object Recognition” — Kavukcuoglu's PhD dissertation; confirms the Computer Science doctorate, NYU, January 2011 and Yann LeCun as adviser.\",\"timestamp\":1786371325749}]"},{"id":"previous_cid","value":"Qmf7cHiRN2bXTTwnZj2CYN3BWxyfvHZEDSXo2P3PxY6JXF"},{"id":"commit-message","value":"Expand Koray Kavukcuoglu wiki: add timeline (+204 words)"},{"id":"previous_cid","value":"Qmf7cHiRN2bXTTwnZj2CYN3BWxyfvHZEDSXo2P3PxY6JXF"}],"user":{"id":"0x8af7a19a26d8fbc48defb35aefb15ec8c407f889"},"author":{"id":"0x1E23b34d3106F0C1c74D17f2Cd0F65cdb039b138"},"views":828}