Demis Hassabis sees AGI on the horizon in 5-8 years, as ‘we aren’t there yet’

Today, AI can win Math Olympiad medals but still make mistakes in elementary math — it's still jagged that way, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says.

Published on: Feb 18, 2026, 10:26:35 IST

By Tushar Deep Singh

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Technology isn't there yet in terms of Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, but it's certainly on the horizon, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said at the India AI Summit in New Delhi on Wednesday.

“We are going to enter a golden era for scientific discovery, almost a new era,” Hassabis, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his groundbreaking work on protein structure prediction using AI, said during a conversation with IIT Madras Professor B. Ravindran.

As for AGI, “we are not there yet”.

“There are still things that systems can't do—things like continued learning still needs to happen,” Hassabis said.

One of the biggest issues is consistency, long-term planning.

“Systems today can get international Math Olympiad medals, but can still make mistakes in elementary math. (AI) is still jagged that way,” the DeepMind CEO said.

“It's been amazing to see the progress we have made in just over a decade. The threshold moment where AGI is on the horizon is 5-8 years,” he said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tushar Deep Singh
Tushar Deep Singh is a business journalist and digital editorial leader with 12 years of experience in financial journalism. Currently Assistant Editor at Hindustan Times, he is building the HT Business vertical and managing the newsletters for both Livemint and HT. When not in the newsroom, he can be found on a motorcycle. Throughout his career, Tushar has been instrumental in scaling digital publishing operations at some of India’s largest financial news websites. His six-year tenure at Mint—the first job—saw him plunge into online media to deliver record-breaking digital engagement for Livemint.com, including 7.2 million page views on 2017 UP Election Results day. He held fort at Livemint during a senior-level leadership transition later that year. That won him the HT Media Star Award (Bronze) in 2017 and a Certificate of Appreciation for Editorial Excellence in 2018. As the head of the digital desk at ETtech, he curated two daily, full-stack newsletters from an editorial as well as product perspective. At NDTV Profit, he transitioned from website editor to principal correspondent, reporting on the auto sector for the TV channel and website, thereby adding yet another layer to his editorial expertise. He is a post-graduate in journalism from Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai, and a graduate from St. Xavier's College, Ahmedabad.Read More

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