Google Cloud invests $750M to advance agent business

Every business is facing the near future of agent AI, but the revolution is too big and too complex for any one organization to navigate alone. The race is now to build the environment, skills and infrastructure needed to establish an agency business.

Google LLC is betting that a rebuilt partner network is the way to get them there. The company announced a $750 million fund to equip its 120,000-member ecosystem with skills, tools and advanced engineering capabilities to accelerate customer outcomes, according to Philip Larson (pictured), managing director of the Google Cloud Partner Network at Google.

“We believe that customers are essentially on a journey to independent business,” Larson said. “Every customer in the world has to make that transition. No customer can do that on their own. They need an ecosystem that can help them on that path. We’ve built the Google Cloud Partner Network to help build capacity, capabilities, and more — and a growing ecosystem of partners that can take customers on that journey.”

Larson spoke with CUBE’s John Furrier and co-host Alison Kosik on Google Cloud Next, during an exclusive broadcast on CUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s live streaming studio. They discussed the redesigned Google Cloud Partner Network, the $750 million ecosystem investment for agents and how to use AI to drive the partner program itself. (* Disclosure below.)

The agent business is looking for a purpose-built partner network

The Google Cloud Partner Network covers the full range of agent business delivery, from technology building independent software providers that work alongside Google Cloud, to global system integrators such as Accenture PLC that deliver agent solutions directly to customers, as well as data providers and market partners, Larson explained. The $750 million investment includes sandbox credits for workshops and pilots, demand generation to identify customers ready to begin their agent journey, deployment vouchers and forward-deployed engineering services to bring workloads live.

“I feel like a lot of partner programs fail because they try to track a lot of useless things,” said Larson. “At the end of the day, accelerating customer outcomes is the path to the end game. The Google Partner Network removes all the friction of unnecessary external audits, needless ornaments on the tree just for the sake of having them, and instead measures a partner’s ability to contribute to customer outcomes.”

The program itself is built on an agent structure, with AI agents already managing partners in onboarding, training, enabling and support – including job statement analysis that went from zero to 90% acceptance among funded partners within six months, according to Larson. The pace of partner demand is now seeing annual release cycles accelerate to monthly cadences as partners recognize a once-in-a-lifetime market opportunity.

“Agents from our partners will talk to agents from the Google Cloud Partner Network throughout the location, training, and more,” Larson said. “It will feed content from my system into their internal systems. It will make targeted recommendations about what to do with their reps in real time within their systems. Meanwhile, people will be sitting on top with a layer of intelligence that helps them see how they can add value quickly.”

Here’s the full video interview, part of SiliconANGLE and CUBE’s Google Cloud Next:

(*Disclosure: Google sponsored this part of CUBE. Neither Google nor other sponsors have editorial control over the content on CUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE