Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis recently refined his prediction, suggesting that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is likely on the horizon in the next 5 to 8 years.
Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 18, 2026, Hassabis noted that while progress has been “remarkable” over the last decade, we are not quite there yet due to a few remaining technical “jagged edges.”
The 5–8 Year Window: Why “Not Yet”?
Hassabis explained that while current models (like Gemini 3) show flashes of brilliance, they still lack the consistency and “all-around” capability required for true AGI.
- The Consistency Gap: He pointed out that today’s systems can win gold medals at the International Math Olympiad but still occasionally make mistakes in elementary-level math.
- Missing Ingredients: For AGI to be achieved, Hassabis believes the industry still needs “one or two” more major breakthroughs in:
- Continual Learning: The ability for a model to learn from new experiences in real-time without forgetting previous knowledge.
- Long-term Planning: Moving beyond next-token prediction to high-level reasoning over long time horizons.
- World Models: Developing a deeper, physical understanding of how the world works, which is critical for robotics and autonomous agents.
A Cautionary Stance on Speed
While some industry peers like Dario Amodei (Anthropic) have suggested a more aggressive timeline of 2026–2027, Hassabis has maintained a more cautious tone. At the World Economic Forum (Davos) 2026 in January, he gave AGI a 50% chance of arriving by the end of the decade, emphasizing that “scientific creativity”—the ability to come up with the right question or hypothesis—is significantly harder than simply answering one.
| Expert | Timeline Prediction (as of 2026) |
| Demis Hassabis (Google) | 5 to 8 Years (2031–2034) |
| Dario Amodei (Anthropic) | 1 to 3 Years (2027–2029) |
| Sam Altman (OpenAI) | “By the end of the decade” |
| Elon Musk (xAI) | 2026 (Predicting “smarter than any human” by next year) |
The “Golden Era” of Science
Despite the 5–8 year wait for full AGI, Hassabis is extremely bullish on the immediate future. He told the New Delhi audience that we are entering a “Golden Era” for scientific discovery, where AI will accelerate breakthroughs in medicine, climate change, and material science by 10x—comparable to the impact of the Industrial Revolution.
“We are at a threshold moment. The opportunities are incredible, but it’s very important to have international dialogue now to make sure the benefits are shared and the risks are mitigated.” — Demis Hassabis, Feb 18, 2026.
