More teams are merging into Google DeepMind

Over the past few years, especially since the launch of ChatGPT, some have perceived Google as a sleeping giant. The influential paper Attention Is All You Need, published under Google, introduced the Transformer model, the same foundation that powers ChatGPT. This created a situation where Google developed a groundbreaking technology but (seemingly) didn"t capitalize on it fully, only to be surprised when a competitor built something transformative with it.

The explosive success of ChatGPT sent shockwaves through the tech world, particularly at Google, which saw the LLM chatbot as a potential challenge to its dominance in the search market and, by extension, its ad business. In response, Google introduced features like AI Overviews, though these stumbled out of the gate.

Part of Google"s strategy to address the threat posed by OpenAI involved consolidating its AI efforts. In 2023, it merged the Google Brain team with DeepMind, creating a new unit called Google DeepMind.

This team has since spearheaded the development of Gemini, Google"s answer to ChatGPT. Since its formation, Google DeepMind has released models like Gemini 2.0 Flash, which supports multimodality, and features such as Gemini Live.

Now, it seems Google is stepping up its efforts further by expanding the Google DeepMind unit. Logan Kilpatrick, product lead for Google AI Studio, recently shared the following update on X:

Kilpatrick noted that while the Google DeepMind team is growing, the mission for both Google AI Studio and the Gemini Developer AI teams remains the same: to "build the world’s best AI developer platform, bringing the latest models, tools, and techniques from Google to external developers."

Meanwhile, Google"s prominent rival, Sam Altman, recently highlighted OpenAI’s focus on "superintelligence." In a blog post, he described it as a tool with the potential to "massively accelerate scientific discovery and innovation well beyond what we are capable of doing on our own."