Google Cloud Next 25: AI Everywhere with Hybrid Approach and Agent Innovations

At Cloud Next, Google bets on AI everywhere

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. There's been a lot of discussion recently on how AI applications are evolving but based on many of the announcements that Google made at the Cloud Next event in Las Vegas, it seems increasingly clear that hybrid is where many of these developments are headed. To be clear, Google made an enormously and impressively broad range of announcements at Cloud Next and not a single press release specifically mentioned Hybrid AI. However, when you take a step back and analyze how several of the pieces fit together and look ahead to where the trends the company is driving appear to be going, the concept of GenAI-powered applications (and agents) that leverage a combination of the public cloud, enterprise private clouds and even smart devices-that is, Hybrid AI-appear inevitable. A few highlights first. On the cloud infrastructure front, Google made several big debuts at Cloud Next, most of which focus on the increasing range of computer architecture options coming to customers of GCP. Most notably, the company took the wraps off their 7th generation TPU processor, codenamed Ironwood, its in-house designed alternative to GPUs and the first to be specifically designed for inferencing workloads. In addition to 10x improvements in raw performance versus previous generations, what's impressive about the latest versions is the extent of high-speed chip-to-chip connectivity options that Google will be offering between them. Taking a page from the Nvidia NVLink book, Google's latest AI Hypercomputer architecture lets up to 9,216 of these Gen 7 TPUs be interconnected into a single compute pod, providing plenty of bandwidth for even the largest of the new chain-of-thought based reasoning models starting to become available. In fact, Google claimed that maxing out a system could deliver up to 42.5 exaflops, more than 24x the computer power of today's fastest supercomputer. ADK framework showing how you can build multi-agent systems Another big theme from the Cloud Next keynote was around agents, including the tools to build them, to connect them to one another, and to integrate them more easily with a variety of LLMs. Building on the company's previous Agentspace announcement - which allows enterprise employees to use Google's multi-modal search capabilities across enterprise data and build their own agents in a low code/no code manner-Google also debuted a new Agent Development Kit for developers as part of its Vertex AI platform. Even more importantly, the company announced its Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol, which is an effort to standardize the means by which different agents can "talk" to each other and share information. A2A builds upon and is compatible with Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) which was introduced last year and is quickly gaining traction in the AI world. In fact, it's Google's strong MCP support across a range of products that it introduced here at Cloud Next that really led to the hybrid AI conclusions I made earlier. MCP offers a standardized way for models to connect to a variety of different data sources - instead of having to deal with proprietary APIs - and provides a standardized means by which models can expose the various functions they're able to perform on these data sets. In the process, this means that MCP both solves some big challenges in creating AI-powered applications that can tap into local data resources and opens up a world of intriguing possibilities for creating distributed AI applications that can tap into data sources, other models and other computing infrastructure across different physical locations. It's this capability that makes MCP so intriguing-and it's likely a big reason support for the nascent standard is growing so rapidly. Google made the potential impact of MCP much more real by announcing it is now also allowing organizations to bring Gemini models, Agentspace and other AI tools into their private cloud/on-prem datacenter environments via the Google Distributed Cloud in the third quarter of this year. This is a hugely important development because it means that companies building apps with Google Cloud-based tools can use them across many different environments. So, for example, it would be possible for an organization to tap into the essentially unlimited resources of Google's public cloud infrastructure to run certain functions with certain models and data sets stored there, while running other functions on different models that access data behind the firewall within their private cloud or datacenter environments. This solves the data gravity problem that many organizations have been struggling with as they start to think about tapping into the powerful capabilities of today's most advanced LLMs because it essentially allows them to have the best of both worlds. It gives them massive cloud-based compute with data stored in the public cloud and local compute with the large and often most valuable proprietary data sets that many organizations still keep (or may want to repatriate) within their own environments. Plus, it's even possible to extend the distributed nature of the computing environment to PCs and smartphones, particularly as the availability of devices with more powerful AI acceleration capabilities increases. While this last step likely won't happen overnight, it will become a critical capability as companies look to reduce the electricity demands and costs of their AI applications down the road. Speaking of on-device capabilities, Google also announced several enhancements to their Workspace productivity offering at this year's Cloud Next. New AI-powered features include automation-focused Workflows, audio features in Docs and more. These build on many previous AI-powered functions that Google brought into Workspace earlier this year, including no-cost access to the most advanced version of the Gemini model, new data analysis functions in Sheets, document analysis and summarization across all the Workspace applications and more. As with previous Cloud Next events, there were many more announcements that Google discussed across areas such as databases, code creation tools, the Firebase agent creation studio, Cloud WAN private network access, security improvements and much more. It's a bit overwhelming to make sense of it all, to be honest, but it just shows how tremendously fast cloud-based offerings continue to expand, particularly with the integration of the even faster moving AI foundation model developments. Ultimately, though, it's clear that Google is using its long history of AI developments as well as the recent advancements it's made with Gemini models and other AI tools as a clear differentiator for Google Cloud. In the process, they're continuing to position themselves in a unique way not only for current applications but also for hybrid AI applications down the road. Bob O'Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on X @bobodtech

Google Cloud has big plans to take the pain out of adopting AI agents in your business

Host of agent-themed launches and upgrades steal the show at Cloud Next 25 With AI agents becoming an increasingly common sight in businesses everywhere, Google Cloud has become the latest major company to ramp up its efforts in the space. At its Google Cloud Next 25 event, the company unveiled several upgrades to its Agentspace platform to make agent discovery and adoption easier. Just to give things an extra boost, Google Cloud also announced a new partnership with Nvidia designed at making its offerings even more intuitive. Following the initial launch of Google Agentspace in December 2024, the updates were mainly aimed at making creating and deploying AI agents easier This includes giving employees access to Agentspace search and analysis tools directly from the search box in Google Chrome. The multimodal search capabilities can help track down exactly the data needed within your business, or give customers access to the answers they need. The search results can cover content from the web, or from your business' most commonly-used apps and software, including the likes of Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and apps like Jira, Salesforce, or ServiceNow. Elsewhere, workers can also use a new Agent Gallery to find and deploy new agents quickly as well as creating their own agents with the new no-code Agent Designer platform - or launch some of Google's latest own-brand offerings, Idea Generation agent and Deep Research agent. In order to make sure all these new agents co-exist effectively, Google Cloud has also launched a new interoperability protocol called Agent2Agent, which it says, "will allow AI agents to communicate with each other, securely exchange information, and coordinate actions on top of various enterprise platforms or applications." Built on existing standards to allow easier integration, the company has already signed up more than 50 partners for the launch, including enterprise heavyweights such as Salesforce, PayPal, Box, Atlassian and more. Finally, to harness the power of some of the most powerful computing hardware around today, Google Cloud and Nvidia have signed a collaboration bring the former's AI models to Nvidia Blackwell HGX and DGX platforms, as well as Nvidia Confidential Computing. "By bringing our Gemini models on premises with Nvidia Blackwell's breakthrough performance and confidential computing capabilities, we're enabling enterprises to unlock the full potential of agentic AI," said Sachin Gupta, vice president and general manager of infrastructure and solutions at Google Cloud. "This collaboration helps ensure customers can innovate securely without compromising on performance or operational ease."

Google Cloud Next 25

AI is transforming the way we work -- from boosting productivity and creativity to delivering real business transformation and impact. And at Google Cloud, we're bringing the best of Google AI to people, organizations and businesses across the globe. Today, there are over four million developers building with the power of Gemini, our most advanced AI model family. This rapid adoption of Gemini, Imagen (our groundbreaking image generation model), and Veo (our industry-leading video generation model) has resulted in a 20x increase in Vertex AI usage in the past year alone. And within Google Workspace, over two billion AI assists are provided monthly to business users, reshaping how work gets done. We're continuing to push what Google AI can do, making it more powerful, easier to use and more affordable. This week at Google Cloud Next 25, we shared exciting updates about how we're doing just that: From introducing the most powerful chip we've ever built, to providing support for even more generative media models, to helping organizations create and manage AI agents, to changing how teams work with new capabilities in Google Workspace and Google Agentspace. We also shared over 500 examples of how organizations are using Google AI and seeing real impact. Here are some of the highlights of what we announced: - Ironwood, our 7th-generation TPU built for inference, will be available later this year. Compared to the prior generation, Ironwood offers five times more peak compute capacity and six times the high-bandwidth memory capacity. - With the addition of Lyria to Vertex AI, we are now the only platform with generative media models for video, image, speech and music. - New updates and tools for Gemini in Workspace bring even more helpful AI capabilities into tools people use every day -- Docs, Sheets, Meet, Chat and more. - Updates to Agentspace make it easier for customers to discover, create and adopt AI agents. We're also growing the AI Agent Marketplace, a dedicated section within Google Cloud Marketplace where customers can easily browse and purchase AI agents from partners. . - And we unveiled more tools to build helpful agents including Agent Development Kit (ADK), an open-source framework for building agents while maintaining control over agent behavior; and Agent2Agent (A2A), new open protocol that gives your agents a common language to collaborate no matter what framework or vendor they are built on. - Gemini 2.5 Flash, our workhorse model with low latency and cost efficiency, will soon be available in Vertex AI. - Google Unified Security brings our best-in-class security products for threat intelligence, security operations, cloud security and secure enterprise browsing into a new, single AI-powered security solution. - With Cloud Wide Area Network (Cloud WAN), we're making our high-speed, low-latency network -- the same one that connects billions of users to services like Gmail, Photos and Search -- available to organizations around the world.

6 highlights from Google Cloud Next 25

2. Vertex AI offers video, image, speech and music generation models. Alongside the preview launch of the text-to-music model Lyria, we announced major updates to our existing tools. Veo 2 is getting advanced editing features (inpainting, outpainting and interpolation) and camera controls. Chirp 3 is adding Instant Custom Voice creation from just 10 seconds of audio and improved multi-speaker transcription. And Imagen 3 is seeing higher-quality generation and improved editing capabilities like object removal. These advancements, coupled with enterprise safety features like SynthID watermarking and copyright indemnity, give businesses like L'Oreal, Kraft Heinz, and Goodby Silverstein & Partners tools to streamline creative workflows, reduce production time and produce content across diverse formats. AI agents are becoming increasingly specialized and delivering significant return on investment for companies. Customer agents power solutions for Lowe's and Wendy's; data agents accelerate work at Wayfair and AES; coding agents boost developer productivity internally at Google; and security agents help monitor threats for firms like Dunn & Bradstreet. We also announced updates to Google Agentspace, used by KPMG and Wells Fargo, including Chrome integration and a no-code Agent Assembler, aiming to provide every employee with accessible AI tools. In collaboration with over 50 industry partners, we introduced the Agent2Agent Protocol. This first-of-its-kind open standard enables AI agents built by different vendors or on different frameworks to securely communicate, exchange information and coordinate actions across various enterprise platforms. In combination with the new Agent Development Kit (ADK) and the new Agent Garden, which provides samples and connectors, Google is making it easier for developers to build agents.

Google Cloud Next 25: New AI capabilities to transform your business

And it is the best model in the world, according to the Chatbot Arena leaderboard. It's state-of-the-art across a range of benchmarks requiring advanced reasoning. That included the highest score -- ever -- on Humanity's Last Exam, one of the hardest industry benchmarks that's designed to capture the human frontier of knowledge and reasoning. Gemini 2.5 Pro is available now for everyone in Google AI Studio, Vertex AI and in the Gemini app. We're also announcing Gemini 2.5 Flash, our low latency and most cost efficient thinking model. With 2.5 Flash, you can control how much the model reasons, and balance performance with your budget. Gemini 2.5 Flash is coming soon in Google AI Studio, Vertex AI and in the Gemini app. We'll be sharing more details on the model and its performance soon. Our goal is to always bring our latest AI advances into the fourth layer of our stack: products and platforms. Today all 15 of our half-billion user products -- including seven with 2 billion users -- are using our Gemini models. AI deployed at this scale requires world-class inference, which enterprises can benefit from to build their own AI-powered applications. Gemini is also helping us create net-new products and experiences. NotebookLM is one example, used by 100,000 businesses. It uses long context, multimodality and our latest thinking models to show information in powerful ways. Veo 2 is a leading video generation model. Major film studios, entertainment companies, as well as the top advertising agencies in the world are using it to bring their stories to life. Getting these advancements into the hands of both consumers and enterprises is something we're really focused on. This is why we are able to innovate at the cutting edge, and push the boundaries of what's possible, for us -- and for you. The result: better, faster, and more innovation for everyone.

Google to help developers make their own AI agents in cloud push

Google plans to help developers build artificially intelligent assistants for a variety of tasks, which could increase dependence on -- and revenue for -- its cloud services. At its annual cloud computing conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Google said it would release the Agent Development Kit, a set of open-source tools to make it easier to build AI agents, as well as a menu of ready-to-use agents in its cloud computing platform. Google envisions its clients using digital agents to respond to customers, write code, create marketing materials and otherwise streamline their operations. If it becomes popular, the boost it generates in cloud revenue could help offset Google's pricier-than-expected push into generative AI. Investors who were already fretting about AI's steep price tag are growing increasingly alarmed about how tariffs may drive up the costs of tech companies' infrastructure plans. Google's parent company, Alphabet, said in February that it would spend about $75 billion on capital expenditures this year, blowing past analysts' projections. Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said the company will be able to navigate the turbulent economic environment. "We're very confident in our own destiny," Kurian said in an interview before the event. "We're talking to customers and partners around the world. It's very early days. I would not overread anything into the situation right now. But at the end of the day, it always comes down to how well you react to a curveball." With its push into AI agents, Google is embracing a product that has come into vogue in Silicon Valley in recent months. Tech companies are hopeful that breakthroughs in AI models' ability to approximate human reasoning will enable assistants to complete more complex tasks, beyond setting alarms or delivering the weather report. "I view it as removal of the soul-sucking nature of a lot of workflows to then empower people to do their jobs better," said Chris O'Neill, CEO of GrowthLoop, a company that offers AI agents for marketing. "Ultimately, the difference is the breakthroughs in understanding the semantics of language." Google said its open-source Agent Development Kit would enable companies to create agents with fewer than 100 lines of code. Google also unveiled its Agent2Agent protocol, a set of standards that it said would allow agents released by different companies to work together. Companies including AI startup Anthropic, Deloitte, Salesforce, SAP and ServiceNow have signed on to use the protocol. The list had some notable exceptions, like Microsoft and Open AI, the maker of ChatGPT. In order for the technology to take off, it will be crucial for companies to be able to stitch together agents from the various programs they use, said Joe Davis, an executive vice president at ServiceNow. "It's about breaking those walls and those silos so that agents can really collaborate, so that you can give customers really what they need," Davis said. Google also said it had grabbed cloud business from notable generative artificial intelligence startups, including Safe Superintelligence, co-founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. The startup is using Google's Tensor Processing Unit chips in its research and development. Augment Code, which uses Nvidia graphics processing units to develop its product, said Google offered ready access to chips for its cloud customers, while other cloud providers said they would likely have to wait in line for capacity, said Scott Dietzen, Augment's CEO. "Google was also quite aggressive in delivering a win-win situation in terms of giving us a price point that was good for them and good for us relative to what we were seeing from some of the other cloud providers," Dietzen said. Augment is among some 4,000 customers that use Anthropic large language models powered by Google's servers, Google and Anthropic said. Separately, as part of its cloud event, Google said it is expanding its in-house chip efforts at a time when chips are hard to get. The company said its new chip, called Ironwood, has been designed with efficiency in mind, and to meet the demands of sophisticated AI models focused on delivering predictions after being trained with data. To strengthen its existing partnership with Reddit, Google also said that the online social media forum would integrate a new type of search called "Reddit Answers," underpinned by Google's AI, on its homepage. Sites have long been able to embed their own limited version of Google Search to help users browse their content, but the company says the quality of this custom search is better because of generative AI. Users will be able to engage in an AI-powered conversation on the website, Google and Reddit said, and the search will draw from discussions and insights in Reddit's forums. Google also said it would let cloud customers take advantage of the global infrastructure it built to support giant products like Gmail, YouTube and Search. It announced Cloud WAN, which lets customers tap into the network infrastructure the tech giant has spent years investing in, including subsea cables and millions of miles of fiber.

Google cloud doubles down on AI

Vertex AI is a platform for building AI applications and agents and has a library of models such as Anthropic, Mistral and Llama to choose from, including Google's. Google has also announced advancements in its multimodal models such as Imagen 2, Chirp 3 (audio generation model), Lyria (text to music model), and Veo 2.Google Cloud is doubling down on its artificial intelligence capabilities across its suite of products including agentic AI, networking and compute and multimodal AI models to help customers in their business transformation journey. Speaking at its annual Google Cloud Next 2025 at Las Vegas on April 9, Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud said, "Just one year ago, we shared a vision for how AI can fundamentally transform organizations. Today, that vision is not just a possibility - it's the vibrant reality we are collectively building." Kurian said that about four million developers are building on its foundational model Gemini and increasing adoption of its image generation model Imagen and video generation model Veo. Vertex AI has seen 20X increase in usage, largely driven by the rapid adoption of Gemini, he added. Vertex AI is a platform for building AI applications and agents and has a library of models such as Anthropic, Mistral and Llama to choose from, including Google's. Google has also announced advancements in its multimodal models such as Imagen 2, Chirp 3 (audio generation model), Lyria (text to music model), and Veo 2. As artificial intelligence becomes integral to businesses, Google Cloud is innovating to tap into this growing need. AI's opportunity Kurian said, "The opportunity presented by AI is unlike anything we've ever witnessed. It holds the power to improve lives, enhance productivity, and reimagine processes on a scale previously unimaginable." He added that Google's been bringing machine learning into its products for more than 20 years, and their investment in AI is rooted in organising the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful. "With Google Cloud, we extend this mission, viewing AI as the most potent catalyst for helping you - our customers, developers and partners - advance your mission," Kurian said. The company announced slew or announcements in line with this. This includes the launch of Google's 7 generation TPU, Ironwood, which Kurian said is the largest and most powerful TPU till date. According to him, this offers 10x more improvement than its most recent high-performance TPU and will meet the demand for thinking models such as Gemini 2.5. Gemini 2.5 AI models, which are reasoning models, were brought to Vertex AI two weeks ago. Google announced that it is bringing Gemini 2.5 Flash models, which is optimised for cost and latency, to Vertex AI. In addition, to make this accessible to all enterprises, where keeping data on the premise is key, Kurian said, "Google's Distributed Cloud is bringing Google's model to an on-premise environment." This is through partnership with Nvidia Blackwell and Dell. The search giant also has a significant focus on agentic AI. Agentic AI Kurian said, "Agents are poised to play an increasingly vital role in the workforce, collaborating with employees to drive efficiencies, enhance decision-making, and accelerate innovation." To enable seamless communication, Google launched Agent2Agent Protocol, which is an open protocol that allows multiple agents to communicate with each other regardless of the underlying architecture. "More than 50 partners, including Accenture, Box, Deloitte, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, and TCSare actively contributing to defining this protocol, representing a shared vision of multi-agent systems," Kurian said. Other features that enable the agentic AI ecosystem include Agent Development Kit (ADK) for developers, and Agent Garden, a repository of tools that allows agents to connect to multiple applications. (The writer was at Google Cloud Next 25 in Las Vegas at the invitation of Google)

Google Next CEO Keynote: 6 Bold Remarks On AI, Wiz And New Innovation

Google Cloud's CEO Thomas Kurian took to the main stage today at Google Cloud Next 2025 to deliver a keynote speech revolving around his bullish goals for AI while touting new innovation launched today at Google's conference. "Google's AI momentum is exciting," Kurian said during his keynote on Wednesday. "We're seeing more than 4 million developers using Gemini, a 20-time increase in Vertex AI usage last year driven by the strong adoption of Gemini Flash, Gemini 2.0, Imagin 3.0 and most recently, our advanced video generation model. And over 2 billion AI assists monthly to business users, right within Google Workspace." Tens of thousands of Google partners, customers and developers flocked to Las Vegas this week to attend Google Cloud Next 2025. [Related: Google Cloud Next: The 10 Biggest Google Product Launches] "We at Google Cloud are committed to helping each of you innovate by delivering the leading enterprise-ready, AI-optimized platform with the best infrastructure, leading models, tools and agents -- by offering an open, multi cloud platform and building for interoperability so we can speed up time to value for your AI investments," Google Cloud's CEO said. "We are honored to be building this new way to cloud with each of you." Kurian spoke about the three key reasons why customers are selecting Google's AI solutions, new Google Cloud innovation for Workspace and Agentspace, touched on Google's upcoming $32 billion acquisition of security superstar Wiz, and explained his company's AI strategy. Here are the six of the most significant remarks made by Thomas Kurian during his keynote at Google Cloud Next 2025 today.

Google Cloud's Five Big New Agentic AI Innovations And Go-To-Market Strategy For Partners

"We are the undisputed leader in terms of AI," said Google Cloud's global channel chief, Kevin Ichhpurani, as the $48 billion company launches a slew of new agentic AI innovations and channel enablement initiatives. From partners stitching together other solution providers' AI agents to create a true agentic environment for customers to Google Cloud's new Agent2Agent open protocol -- Google Cloud is putting a full-court press on AI agent development and implementation for its army of partners. "Customers are concerned about the spaghetti nightmare that's going to get created with all of these AI agents," Ichhpurani (pictured), president of Google Cloud's global partner ecosystem, told CRN. "Everybody's got their own agent. Salesforce has Agentforce. SAP has Joule. Workday has their agents. In many ways, all these agents need to communicate." [Related: Google Cloud Next: The 10 Biggest Google Product Launches] Google Cloud saw this "huge problem" around agentic AI interoperability so the Mountain View, Calif.-based company built new "agent-to-agent interoperability" technology via its Agent2Agent protocol, he said. Google Cloud's new Agent2Agent protocol enables AI agents to communicate with each other, securely exchange information and coordinate actions across various platforms or services like Atlassian, Box, Cohere, Intuit, LangChain, MongoDB, PayPal, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, UKG and Workday. In an interview with CRN, Ichhpurani takes a deep dive into how Google partners can leverage Agent2Agent protocol today, how reselling Google AI solutions isn't going away, and why partners should be leveraging and selling other partners' AI agents. "Some of the systems integrators are taking four or five other partner agents to stitch it together for a customer," he said. "So it's not just what they are building, but what other partners are building as well." Ichhpurani outlined five key new AI innovations recently launched by Google Cloud that every systems integrator, MSP, reseller, consultant and AI service provider should know. Here is what he told CRN. "Customers are concerned about the spaghetti nightmare that's going to get created with all of these agents. Everybody's got their agent. Salesforce has Agentforce. SAP has Joule. Workday has their agents. In many ways, all these agents need to communicate. That's the reason ERP came together three decades ago. "A perfect example: an agent that does commerce selling products to you. It sure needs to talk to the agent that handles supply chain, [asking], 'Do I even have the inventory in stock?' "So these agents all need to be able to interoperate. We see that as a huge problem in the industry, and we're pioneering the agent-to-agent interoperability through our protocol. "It now has over 60 partners that we're working with. Companies like Intuit, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow as well as Accenture, Deloitte -- major GSIs -- in order to hone and deliver this protocol in the market." "No. 1, we're helping them understand the demand signals. So based on what research we're pulling up from our customers, we're going to share that with partners. Like, 'Hey, we see that in health care, clinical documentation is a huge agentic opportunity. Within insurance, an automated claims adjuster is a huge X billions of opportunity.' "So we're sharing demand signals with partners, like these are the areas you should go build. We obviously give you Agentspace and the developer frameworks for you to build these agents. We're providing technical support to not only enable the partners, but to actually co-innovate and help them build these agentic experiences for customers. "We give you the protocol to ensure that all of these agents can talk to each other."

Google Cloud Next: The 10 Biggest Google Product Launches

From its new Ironwood TPU accelerator and Cloud Wide Area Network to a slew of new AI agents and Workspace innovation, Google unleashed 10 new products at Google Cloud Next 2025 today. "Just one year ago, we shared a vision for how AI can fundamentally transform organizations. Today, that vision is not just a possibility - it's the vibrant reality we are collectively building," said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in a blog post today. "The opportunity presented by AI is unlike anything we've ever witnessed. It holds the power to improve lives, enhance productivity, and reimagine processes on a scale previously unimaginable," he added. "Today, at Next 2025, we're proud to announce significant new innovations across our entire portfolio." [Related: Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian On Agentic AI's Starring Role] AI agents, or agentic AI, is Google Cloud's largest investment this year as seen at Google Cloud Next with several new security and coding agents being unveiled. Google's conference is taking place in Las Vegas this week from April 9 to April 11. Here are the 10 biggest product launches from Google Cloud Next 2025 today including a new AI Agent Development Kit, improvements to Vertex AI and Agentspace, as well as Google making its Gemini models available on-premises.

Google Cloud Next 2025 Opening Keynote

Google Cloud Next 2023 presented a comprehensive showcase of advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), cloud infrastructure, and enterprise tools. These innovations are designed to enhance performance, scalability, and accessibility for businesses across various industries. From innovative AI hardware to productivity-enhancing tools, the event highlighted Google's dedication to driving technological progress. Below is an in-depth exploration of the most notable announcements. At the forefront of cloud infrastructure advancements, Google introduced the Cloud Wide Area Network (Cloud WAN), a solution aimed at delivering faster and more reliable network performance for enterprises. With speeds up to 40% faster and reduced operational costs, Cloud WAN is set to redefine enterprise connectivity by improving efficiency and scalability. Security remained a critical focus, with the integration of NVIDIA's confidential computing and Blackwell systems. These technologies provide robust data protection, making sure that sensitive workloads remain secure in increasingly complex cloud environments. By addressing both performance and security, Google is allowing businesses to operate with greater confidence in the cloud. Google unveiled the 7th generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), codenamed "Ironwood," a significant leap forward in AI hardware. With a compute power of 42.5 exaflops per pod, Ironwood is engineered to handle high-performance AI workloads while maintaining energy efficiency. This innovation underscores Google's commitment to supporting large-scale machine learning operations with state-of-the-art hardware. The improved energy efficiency of Ironwood not only reduces operational costs but also aligns with sustainability goals, making it a pivotal tool for enterprises aiming to balance performance with environmental responsibility. Here are more guides from our previous articles and guides related to AI advancements that you may find helpful. Google announced several updates to its AI software ecosystem, focusing on optimizing performance and reducing costs. These updates are designed to make AI development faster, more efficient, and accessible to a broader range of users. Key highlights include: These advancements reflect Google's focus on creating tools that empower developers to build smarter, faster, and more scalable AI solutions. Google introduced the Gemini AI models, specifically designed for enterprise use in secure, air-gapped environments. These models address the stringent demands of businesses handling sensitive data, providing a reliable and secure solution for AI-driven operations. Additionally, Google announced the availability of Meta's Llama 4 and AI2's open models on Vertex AI. These additions offer developers a wider range of tools to build and deploy AI applications. Enhanced grounding capabilities, using Google Search, enterprise data, and third-party sources, further improve the accuracy and reliability of these models, making sure they meet the diverse needs of modern enterprises. Google Workspace received a significant upgrade with the introduction of new AI-powered tools designed to enhance productivity and streamline workflows. These tools include: These enhancements aim to empower teams to work smarter, fostering collaboration and efficiency across organizations. Google introduced advancements in AI agent technology, focusing on simplifying deployment and expanding the capabilities of intelligent systems. Key innovations include: These developments make AI agents more versatile and accessible, allowing businesses to use intelligent systems for a wide range of applications. To enhance customer interactions, Google introduced conversational AI agents capable of emotional comprehension and real-time video support. These agents deliver human-like interactions, improving customer satisfaction and engagement. Additionally, no-code interfaces enable businesses to quickly create custom AI agents, making advanced AI capabilities accessible to organizations of all sizes. This widespread access of AI tools ensures that even smaller enterprises can benefit from innovative technology. Google announced specialized AI agents tailored for technical roles, such as data engineering, data science, and software development. These agents feature integrations with popular tools like Atlassian and Sentry, streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity for technical teams. Notably, Code Assist agents provide real-time support for software development tasks, helping developers reduce errors and focus on innovation. These specialized tools are designed to address the unique challenges faced by technical professionals. In a move to support the creative industries, Google introduced "Lia," a Music AI tool capable of generating 30-second music clips from text prompts. This innovation opens up new possibilities for content creators, allowing them to produce music quickly and efficiently for various applications, from marketing campaigns to multimedia projects. Google's developer tools received updates aimed at enhancing collaboration and simplifying software lifecycle management. Key features include: These updates are designed to make software development more efficient, collaborative, and aligned with the demands of modern enterprises.

Google Cloud Unveils New AI Tools To 'Increase Partner Profitability': Top Channel Exec Explains How

"We're not just talking about how customers are using AI, we're using it internally to make the partner experience better," said Google Cloud Vice President Colleen Kapase, regarding new AI capabilities specifically built for channel partners. Fresh off unveiling a slew of new AI innovation at Google Cloud Next, the $48 billion cloud giant has launched some new channel-specific AI tools aimed at driving partner profitability, including a new support AI agent and Earnings Hub capabilities. "We're not just talking about how customers are using AI, we're using it internally to make the partner experience better," Colleen Kapase, vice president of channels and partner programs at Google Cloud, tells CRN. "We're using AI to help partners increase their profitability." Google Cloud's new support AI agent was built specifically for Google partners to field various questions around incentives, partner tier levels and training, as well as the ability to quickly approve statements of work. "We're using it in our incentive programs to now approve statements of work to get partners the development funds or the professional services funds they need," said Kapase (pictured above). "It's on 24 hours a day." For example, the new AI support agent can "look at the partners' statements of work, look at their form and say, 'You've got everything answered' -- then boom, they get a response time almost instantaneously," she said. [Related: Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian On Agentic AI's Starring Role] Google Cloud's channel leader said the support agent shows how each individual partner can get to a higher tier in its partner programs or what training they need to achieve certain certification levels. "That's all being handled now through agents and that knowledge base, so it's allowing us to answer a lot more partners' specific questions to get them exactly the answer they want fast and in real time," said Kapase. "Also, frankly, increasing the level of support and reducing the amount of time it takes to get to them an answer." New Google Cloud Earnings Hub Innovation Google Cloud's Earnings Hub tracks partner incentives, growth and benchmarks partner performances against their channel peers. Partners can now leverage new AI-powered insights inside Earnings Hub to provide data such as customer consumption patterns or where a specific partner should be focused on. "We're using AI to tell partners things like, 'When is consumption dropping for their particular customers? Is there a services opportunity where they should be leaning in? Are they not using an incentive program? Do they leave money on the table?'" said Kapase. "It gives partners a natural, native language where they can ask the questions that they want through the Earnings Hub about our different incentives." Additionally, the revamped Earnings Hub will also provide partners with something similar to a report card. "You can use the AI insights to tell you thinks like, 'How am I doing against my peers? Am I in the 50th percentile of earnings through the incentives?' It gives partners a sense of, 'Am I at the top of my game?'" said Kapase. "It's a great way for leadership to see how their operational folks are doing and engaging with our incentives." AI Inside Google's Delivery Navigator The Mountain View, Calif.-based cloud computing superstar has also recently injected AI into its partner Delivery Navigator tool. "That's helping the partners come into the tool and have a very specific question like, 'I am trying to do an Oracle migration for these particular applications,' -- then 'bam' -- it will bring the partner right to that content. Then they can ask, 'I specifically want to do a statement of work for a customer of this size.' The AI Delivery Navigator tool will help them put that together as well," said Kapase. "So it's helping them on the professional services side of the house too," she added. Google Cloud partner Promevo is excited to use the new AI technology for partners to help drive AI sales and customer sickness in 2025. "We're very bullish right now on the changes they're making for partners and the AI they're enabling for us," said Promevo Chief Technology Officer John Pettit. "It's helping us continually find ways to bring Google technology out there to the enterprises." Pettit was impressed by the slew of new AI innovation unveiled at Google Cloud Next 2025 last week in Las Vegas, such as Agentspace, agentic AI and new AI Agent Marketplace. Google Cloud launched a new AI Agent Marketplace last week where customers can browse, purchase, and manage AI agents built by channel partners. "They are going to probably step towards leadership in this space as we look at the rest of this year, and especially when they're investing in things like agent development protocols," Pettit said. "We expect to see some huge growth from AI from Google this year." Kapase, for her part, touted Google Cloud's recent commitment to invest a whopping $75 billion in AI alone in 2025. "We're using AI internally to make our partner experience better," she said. "Our big message for partners is, you need to upscale all of your resources on AI."

Google Sets The Stage For Hybrid AI With Cloud Next Announcements

Google is using its long history of AI developments as well as the recent advancements it's made with Gemini models and other AI tools as a clear differentiator for Google Cloud. In the process, they're continuing to position themselves in a unique way not only for current applications but also for hybrid AI applications down the road. There's been a lot of discussion recently on how AI applications are evolving, but based on many of the announcements that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) made at their Cloud Next event in Las Vegas, it seems increasingly clear Bob O'Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting and market research firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech.