DeepMind’s Gemini Agent Platform

Google used its Cloud Next 2026 conference on April 22 to turn Vertex AI into the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, a new stack for building and managing business AI agents. (blog.google) An AI agent is software that does more than answer questions: it can use tools, connect to company systems, and carry out multi-step tasks. Google said the new platform combines Vertex AI’s model-building and tuning services with new controls for agent integration, security, DevOps, and optimization. (blog.google) Google described the product as a “one-stop-shop” for autonomous agents and said it is designed to let technical teams build, scale, govern, and optimize those systems in one place. The launch also gives developers access to Gemini 3.1 Pro, Gemini 3.1 Flash Image, and Lyria 3 through the same platform. (blog.google) The company is pairing that developer platform with a broader enterprise app layer. Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise app says companies can create, deploy, and govern Google-made, custom-built, and third-party agents on a single platform, with an Agent Marketplace and support for the Agent2Agent interoperability protocol. (cloud.google.com) That packaging reflects where the market has moved over the past year. Vertex AI Agent Builder already offered tools to build and run agents in production, but Google is now branding the effort around enterprise control, security, and fleet management rather than standalone model access. (docs.cloud.google.com 1) (docs.cloud.google.com 2) Reuters reported from Las Vegas on April 22 that Alphabet used the event to deepen its push into enterprise software, telling investors and customers that AI agents can automate more complex workplace tasks. The same report said Google presented the move as part of a broader effort to turn its artificial intelligence research into revenue-generating cloud products. (reuters.com) Google has been laying the groundwork for that shift for months. When it introduced Gemini Enterprise in late 2025, Sundar Pichai said the product was meant to be “the new front door” for Google AI at work, tying together company data, tools, and agents for employees. (blog.google) The competitive target is the same one facing every big cloud vendor: companies want packaged automation, not just model access. Google’s own announcement says the platform sits on top of its infrastructure and data and security systems, while Reuters cast the launch as a direct enterprise challenge to rivals selling agent platforms and workplace AI tools. (blog.google) (reuters.com) For Google, the pitch is no longer just that Gemini can generate text or code. It is that companies can use Google’s cloud to build a governed workforce of software agents — and monitor what those agents are allowed to do. (blog.google) (cloud.google.com)