Google’s “chess master” is working on the killer app for AI

You may have only recently heard of Demis Hassabis. He was appointed one of them Time The magazine’s “AI Architects” won a Nobel Prize for using the technology to predict protein folding and leads Google’s AI efforts. When the search giant acquired his company DeepMind in 2014, it used his new employer’s vast resources to build machines that surpassed human brain power, called artificial general intelligence.

His greatest achievements since then have been bringing the gloss of scientific prestige to Google with AI systems that beat the world’s best Go players and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. A product breakthrough has long eluded Hassabis, but that could change in 2026 when his unconventional ideas find their way into Google’s second attempt at smart glasses, a development that could be a sea change for a company that was left behind by ChatGPT three years ago.