Dhaka, May 20 -- Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind, says artificial general intelligence (AGI) is now "on the horizon," suggesting that a major breakthrough in AI could be closer than many expected.

Speaking at Google I/O, Hassabis said AGI could one day help solve all diseases and that humanity may be approaching the "foothills of singularity," a theoretical point when AI surpasses human intelligence.

AGI refers to a form of AI capable of matching or exceeding human abilities across nearly all cognitive tasks, unlike today's systems, which are designed for specific jobs such as generating text, analysing images or making recommendations.

Hassabis did not give a specific timeline during his keynote. However, he has previously...