Google pivots to agent-led enterprise sales

Google used its Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas on April 22 to recast AI agents from a product feature into the core of its enterprise sales pitch. (usnews.com) The company launched Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, a rebuilt version of Vertex AI for companies that want to build, run, govern, and secure fleets of AI agents. Google said the platform adds agent integration, DevOps, orchestration, and security tools, and that future Vertex AI services will be delivered through it. (cloud.google.com; zdnet.com) Google also set aside $750 million for consulting firms, systems integrators, software partners, and channel partners over the next 12 months. The fund is meant to pay for prototyping, deployment, training, and embedded Google engineers working alongside firms such as Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, HCLTech, and Tata Consultancy Services. (googlecloudpresscorner.com) An AI agent is software that can carry out multi-step work with limited supervision, like pulling data, making decisions, and handing tasks to other programs. Google’s pitch is that large companies no longer need isolated chatbots; they need systems that can manage “thousands” of agents across data, security, and employee tools. (blog.google; zdnet.com) That is the market Google is chasing because enterprise customers have become the steadier source of artificial-intelligence revenue. Reuters reported that Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian used the conference to argue that the “experimental phase” is over and that Google’s tools are ready for production use inside large businesses. (usnews.com) Google paired that sales message with its own internal usage numbers. Pichai said on April 22 that 75% of all new code at Google is now generated by artificial intelligence and approved by engineers, up from 50% last fall. (blog.google) The company is also putting more computing money behind that strategy. Pichai said Google’s first-party models now process more than 16 billion tokens per minute through direct customer application programming interface use, up from 10 billion last quarter, and that just over half of Google’s 2026 machine-learning compute investment is expected to go to the cloud business. (blog.google; usnews.com) Google is not alone in that shift. Reuters said OpenAI and Anthropic have also redirected resources toward enterprise customers in recent months, while Google said paid monthly active users for Gemini Enterprise grew 40% in the first quarter from the prior quarter. (usnews.com; blog.google) Google’s bet is that companies will buy agents the same way they once bought cloud software: through platforms, consultants, and long integration projects. Cloud Next showed Google trying to sell all three at once. (cloud.google.com; googlecloudpresscorner.com; usnews.com)