One of the greatest pleasures of coming to work every day at DeepMind is the chance to collaborate with brilliant researchers and engineers from so many different fields and perspectives - with machine learning experts alongside neuroscientists, physicists, mathematicians, roboticists, ethicists and more.

This level of interdisciplinary collaboration is both challenging and unusual, and it requires a unique type of organisation. We built DeepMind to combine the rigour and long-term thinking of the world’s best scientific institutions, along with the focus, pace and energy common to the best tech startups. I believe this is essential if we’re to fulfil the scientific and social promise of AI, and I’m proud of all that we’ve achieved so far. But there’s still a very long way to go!

So I’m really pleased to welcome Lila Ibrahim to DeepMind as our first ever Chief Operating Officer, partnering with me to design, build and manage our next phase of growth. Having started out as a microprocessor designer and assembler programmer at Intel, Lila went on to lead the company’s emerging markets product group, as well as working with Intel CEO Craig Barrett and then the legendary investor John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins as Chief of Staff. Most recently, Lila led the growth of the brilliant startup Coursera as their COO, helping to bring new educational opportunities to millions of people around the world.