Summary Bullets:
• Google Cloud has developed a comprehensive tech stack to help businesses embrace GenAI and agentic AI.
• There are now many examples of AI delivering commercial benefits including AI-enabled software and automation of workflow for traditional enterprises.
Google Cloud held its annual event in Sydney (Australia) recently which had a keen focus on AI and more specifically agentic AI. The event highlighted the possibilities and benefits of AI through Australian businesses that have deployed the technology commercially to improve customer experience and develop new business opportunities. While the AI models such as Google Gemini have been capturing market attention, there are many other initiatives within Google Cloud to develop capabilities to simplify the adoption of AI. The company now offers an AI-optimized technology stack, which includes the AI infrastructure, data platform, models, platforms, and AI agents and applications. This does not mean that customers are confined to Google Cloud’s tech stack. One of the key value propositions of the company has been its willingness to support hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Another is a view to work with partners on open source and decoupling architectures to avoid lock-in and pivot with new requirements in 12 to 18 months. In the case of AI, it allows businesses to connect their tools developed on Google Cloud to data and applications in other cloud environments.
In deploying AI agents, Google Cloud offers customers three options. Firstly, businesses can build their own proprietary agents through Google Vertex AI Agent Builder, which has various models (including third-party models within Google’s Model Garden), tools, and development kit. Secondly, Google Cloud offers a range of pre-built agents that can be quickly deployed (e.g., agents for customer engagement, coding, data engineering, security, content creation, etc.). Finally, the company is also giving customers access to partner agents developed by companies such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, and more.
While there are many AI projects that failed to move into production, the event showcased some examples of AI being deployed commercially and yielding business value. Global software firms are leading the pack in adoption AI as a matter of survival. As with any platform change, they stand to be disrupted the most by emerging firms who are able to harness the power of AI. Google Cloud is co-innovating with independent software vendors of different sizes to embed AI capabilities into their products. For example, graphic design software firm Canva demonstrated the adoption of Google’s video generation model Veo 3 to add video creation capability to its platform. This move has created a new feature for Canva customers, allowing them to create video content by entering a single text prompt. This can deliver dramatic productivity gains for creative agencies, marketing teams, and educators.
Heidi Health, a software company addressing the challenges of clinicians has been using AI to simplify administrative tasks and giving clinicians more time to engage patients. Heidi Health is an AI-powered medical scribe that frees up clinicians from time-consuming transcription and documentation tasks. The company has leveraged Google Cloud’s AI platform for speech-to-text capabilities, and it is looking to use other tools such as its ‘Agent Builder’ to advance its solution to become a digital health concierge that can, for example, use an AI agent to call patients for follow-up calls to check on symptoms. As a start-up without extensive resources, Heidi Health has leveraged Google Cloud’s global scale to extend its solutions to clinicians in more than 50 countries.
Traditional businesses are also pursuing AI and prioritizing use cases. Orica, a mining and infrastructure solutions provider, applies Google Cloud’s AI platform to its SAP data across its supply chain to forecast customer demand and improve demand planning. This is made possible as the company has consolidated its data to a single source and by re-platforming the SAP environment onto Google Cloud. Optus, the local telco has also launched its ‘Expert AI,’ an agentic AI solution that supports sales and service interactions. It analyzes live customer conversations across channels in real time, provides contextual guidance, summarizes insights, suggests next actions, and executes tasks across multiple backend systems to resolve customer needs. In this market segment, while Google Cloud has the tools and technology, it is working closely with partners to help enterprises achieve their transformation objectives. In the case of Orica, it has highlighted the importance of the partner ecosystem and the migration of SAP workloads from Microsoft Azure to Google Cloud was supported by partners including Accenture, Cognizant, and LTIMindtree.
The event highlights the many possibilities of agentic AI but the reality is that not every business is AI-ready. For AI agents to be capable, a business needs to have a data strategy and the ability to execute it. “Born in the cloud” companies are also more ready as well as companies that have strong digital expertise and have been modernizing their IT. Google Cloud is demonstrating the possibilities with AI but it needs partners to be ready to work with clients to overcome challenges, often due to legacy systems and mindset. Likewise, enterprise will need to also move beyond point solutions, some shared on the day, toward a mindset shift of scaling rollouts by embedding AI across multiple departments, systems, workflows, and buying journeys. While the approach takes on more risks, they provide the highest chances of high impact outcomes.