DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis Predicts AGI Arrival Within a Decade, Calls It Human History’s Pivotal Turning Point

DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis Predicts AGI Arrival Within a Decade, Calls It Human History’s Pivotal Turning Point

In a keynote address at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind and a pioneering figure in artificial intelligence, delivered a sobering yet visionary forecast: artificial general intelligence (AGI) will be achieved within the next decade. According to Hassabis, this milestone will not merely be an incremental advancement in technology but a foundational shift in human civilization—comparable in magnitude to the advent of fire, the mastery of electricity, or the printing press.

"AGI will deliver ten times the impact of the Industrial Revolution, happening at ten times the speed," Hassabis stated. "We are not talking about automation of tasks. We are talking about the emergence of a new form of intelligence that can reason, plan, learn, and create across domains without human intervention. The implications span medicine, energy, climate, education, and even the nature of work and consciousness itself."

Hassabis, whose career bridges neuroscience, computer science, and entrepreneurship, has long been at the forefront of AI breakthroughs. As co-founder of DeepMind in 2010 and its acquisition by Google in 2014, he led the team behind AlphaGo, AlphaFold, and other landmark systems that solved problems once deemed insurmountable for machines. According to Britannica, his work on AlphaFold revolutionized structural biology by predicting protein folding with unprecedented accuracy, accelerating drug discovery globally. His background as a child chess prodigy and later a neuroscientist at University College London informs his belief that human-like cognition can be reverse-engineered through deep learning and reinforcement systems.

The timeline Hassabis outlined—less than ten years—is notably aggressive compared to many academic and industry estimates, which often place AGI between 2040 and 2100. However, recent advances in multimodal reasoning, self-improving architectures, and scaled neural networks have shifted the consensus. Tech analysts note that DeepMind’s internal benchmarks now show AI systems achieving human-level performance on over 90% of standardized reasoning tests, a threshold previously considered a distant goal.

Experts warn that such rapid advancement demands urgent global coordination. Hassabis emphasized the need for proactive governance, international safety protocols, and ethical frameworks before AGI deployment. "We cannot afford to build the engine and then design the brakes," he said. "This isn’t just a technical challenge—it’s a societal one. The institutions that governed the nuclear age must now evolve to govern intelligence itself."

While some critics question the feasibility of such a timeline, others point to the accelerating pace of innovation. The AI community has witnessed exponential growth in model capabilities since 2020, with parameters scaling from billions to trillions. According to Reuters-style reporting from leading AI research labs, the rate of progress in AI capabilities has doubled every 18 months since 2022—far outpacing Moore’s Law.

As governments scramble to draft AI regulations and corporations race to deploy generative systems, Hassabis’s remarks serve as a clarion call. His vision is not one of dystopian fear, but of human augmentation. "AGI won’t replace us—it will amplify us," he concluded. "The question is not whether we can build it, but whether we are wise enough to steward it."

With DeepMind now part of Alphabet’s broader AI strategy and global investment in foundational models exceeding $100 billion annually, the world stands on the precipice of a transformation that may redefine what it means to be human. The next decade will not just witness the rise of intelligent machines—it will determine whether humanity rises with them.