Demis Hassabis, who won Nobel Prize for inventing an AI model, has a warning for students starting college

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, made a bold prediction at the recent Google I/O developer conference—artificial general intelligence (AGI) could be less than a decade away.

Hassabis, who leads Google’s AI initiatives including the Gemini chatbot, advised young people, particularly college students, to “immerse” themselves in AI technologies and become proficient in using cutting-edge tools. “Whatever happens with these AI tools, you’ll be better off understanding how they work and what you can do with them,” he said, urging students to focus on “learning to learn” to stay adaptable in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

What Google DeepMind CEO told students

In a previous interview at his alma mater, the University of Cambridge, Hassabis offered similar guidance to students, stressing that adaptability is one of the most vital skills for the future. Answering questions from undergraduates, he urged them to identify how they learn best and to build the ability to quickly grasp new concepts—a key trait in an ever-evolving tech landscape.


“The world you’re entering will face an incredible amount of disruption and change,” he told students during a March discussion with Professor Alastair Beresford at Queens’ College, Cambridge.

Hassabis highlighted emerging fields like AI, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and quantum computing as promising industries over the next decade. He noted that technological shifts historically disrupt some jobs but create others that are often more interesting and valuable, as discussed on the “Hard Fork” podcast with hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton.

“Anytime there is change, there is also huge opportunity,” he said, encouraging graduates to blend deep knowledge of their interests with adaptability to thrive in an AI-driven future.

"Over the next 5 to 10 years, I think we're going to find what normally happens with big new technology shifts, which is that some jobs get disrupted," he recently told co-hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton on an episode of "Hard Fork," a podcast about the future of technology. However, he said, "new, more valuable, usually more interesting jobs get created" in the wake of that kind of disruption.