‘AI can solve today, but can it think long term?’: DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis at India Summit

New Delhi: Founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, addressed the India AI Impact Summit 2026 on Wednesday, discussing the current limitations of AI systems, the promise of agentic AI, and the importance of AI safety.

Speaking at the event, Hassabis said, “This Summit comes at a critical time as we start seeing more autonomous agentic AI systems,” praising the Indian government’s efforts to integrate AI into national systems.

He highlighted key challenges in current AI models, including the lack of continual learning. “In today’s systems, we train them, and then they’re kind of frozen and put out into the world. But what you’d like is for those systems to continually learn online from experience, personalised to the situation and the task,” he said.

Hassabis also pointed out the difficulty AI systems face in long-term planning. “They can plan over the short term, but over the longer term… they don’t really have that capability at the moment,” he added.

Consistency in AI performance, or the lack thereof, was another concern he raised. “Today’s systems can get gold medals in the International Maths Olympiad, really hard problems, but sometimes still make mistakes on elementary maths… A true general intelligence system shouldn’t have that kind of jaggedness,” he said.

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Founded in 2010, DeepMind was later acquired by Google and has been at the forefront of breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, including applications in science, medicine, and climate research.

The India AI Impact Summit 2026, held at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi from 16–20 February, has brought together policymakers, AI experts, academicians, innovators and civil society representatives from over 110 countries. The event marks the first global AI summit to be hosted in the Global South, focusing on the transformative potential of AI and aligning with India’s national vision of “Sarvajana Hitaya, Sarvajana Sukhaya” (welfare for all, happiness for all) and the global principle of AI for Humanity.

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The summit also saw participation from 30 international organisations, approximately 45 ministers, and around 20 heads of state or government, highlighting its global significance in advancing discussions on AI governance, safety, and societal impact.