Axios: Transformative AI is coming, and so are the risks (Dec 2025)

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Axios·axios.com/2025/12/05/ai-deepmind-hassabis-gemini

Credibility Rating

3/5

Good(3)

Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.

Rating inherited from publication venue: Axios

Journalistic coverage of a December 2025 public interview with DeepMind's CEO; useful as a primary-source-adjacent data point on expert AGI timeline estimates and risk acknowledgment from a leading lab executive.

Metadata

Importance: 52/100news articlenews

Summary

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis tells Axios that AGI is approximately 5-10 years away, requiring current LLM scaling plus one or two major breakthroughs on par with the Transformer or AlphaGo. He acknowledges that AI risks are already materializing and will grow more serious as capabilities advance.

Key Points

•Hassabis estimates AGI is 5-10 years away, contingent on scaling existing models and achieving 1-2 major new breakthroughs.
•Current large language models like Gemini are necessary but may not be sufficient on their own to reach AGI.
•Hassabis warns that serious AI risks are not just theoretical — some are already occurring now.
•Google's Gemini advances reportedly triggered a 'code red' at OpenAI, signaling rapid competitive escalation.
•Hassabis won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, lending significant scientific credibility to his AGI timeline estimates.

Cited by 1 page

Page	Type	Quality
Demis Hassabis	Person	45.0

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Dec 5, 2025 \- [Business](https://www.axios.com/business)

# Transformative AI is coming, and so are the risks

![](https://www.axios.com/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.axios.com%2Fimg%2Fauthor-default.png&w=128&q=75)

- [Ben Berkowitz](https://www.axios.com/authors/bberkowitz)

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![Two men seated in white armchairs on a stage with an "AXIOS" logo backdrop. One in a black shirt and glasses, the other in a blue suit and patterned socks, engaged in conversation.](https://images.axios.com/ErhO-hNesU28LAjcWR-9ah63UVc=/0x144:3000x1832/1920x1080/2025/12/05/1764899400050.jpeg?w=3840)

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis talks with Axios co-founder Mike Allen at the Axios AI+ SF Summit. Photo: Chris Constantine for Axios

The holy grail of technology — artificial general intelligence ( [AGI](https://www.axios.com/2025/12/05/chatgpt-gary-marcus-large-language-models-agi)) that can match or outdo humans — is on the horizon, Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis says.

- But the risks of something going seriously wrong are also in sight, and some are even happening now, he warns.

**The big picture:** Google set the entire AI world spinning in recent months with the giant leaps in its frontier model Gemini, prompting a " [code red](https://www.axios.com/2025/12/02/googles-pressure-ai-rivals)" at OpenAI and forcing others to rethink the competitive landscape.

- But Hassabis,49, who

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