GCP – Bringing the world’s most innovative AI technology to UK customers and partners at Google Cloud Next London

This week we’re delighted to welcome customers and partners to Next London ‘23, where we’ll highlight innovations from across Google Cloud’s portfolio of products and services, as well as from our ecosystem of customers and partners.

In addition, today we’re announcing new and expanded work with global and UK-based customers who are transforming their businesses with Google Cloud’s data, productivity, security, and AI tools, like BT Group, Gymshark, Formula E, and Unilever. We’re also announcing important updates with our partners, including increasing our resources and incentives to reward partners who support customer success. Finally, we’re highlighting several new innovations from UK- and EMEA-based startups who are building with Google Cloud.

Accelerating customers’ digital and AI-driven transformations

Over 40 of FTSE 100 companies are Google Cloud customers, and today we’re proud to announce several new or expanding UK customers who are benefiting from Google Cloud’s AI and cloud technologies, such as:

BT, who is announcing a new partnership with Google Cloud to help its customers protect themselves from cyberattacks. BT will become a managed services delivery partner for Google’s Chronicle-based Autonomic Security Operations offering, so BT customers can benefit from Chronicle’s AI-powered tools and BT’s expertise implementing cybersecurity services.Formula E, who is growing its use of BigQuery and gen AI on Google Cloud, and is developing a new conversational interface that will allow teams to more quickly see and analyze data on their performance. This will also help fans get answers to questions about everything from build changes to track conditions.Gymshark, the fitness community and apparel brand, who is using Google Cloud’s data analytics and AI tools to help improve customer experiences during peak times like Black Friday. Gymshark is also exploring gen AI with Vertex AI to create expert assistants that can guide customers through product selection and in using its training app.Unilever, with whom we’ve partnered to launch its new app, My Unilever. Built on Google Cloud, it unlocks the opportunity for Unilever’s 53,000+ factory-based colleagues to have secure, quick and easy access to key Unilever systems all in one place, and enables one-click access to Google Workspace collaboration tools including email, chat, and document sharing.

Expanding our rewards, resources, and initiatives for global partners

Google Cloud is a partner-led business. Our global partners have an opportunity to help customers create new value with AI technologies like Duet AI and Vertex AI, in critical areas like data modernization and cloud migrations, and to augment their own products and platforms with Google Cloud gen AI.

Coming into 2024, the total amount of incentives and rewards available for our partners are increasing in order to help partners address this opportunity. For example, we plan to increase our funding by as much as 10X for both ISV and systems integrator partners to implement gen AI. We also plan to double our rewards for services partners who drive more workload adoption and accelerate adoption of strategic products.

We’re also continuing to grow the initiatives, tools, and resources available to our partners to help them deliver optimal experiences for customers and create impactful, profitable businesses of their own. New updates announced today include:

We’re adding a new cohort of partners to our Generative AI Partner Initiative, which helps our Build and Service partners more quickly implement Google Cloud’s gen AI capabilities. Today, we’re excited to welcome a new cohort of partners to the initiative, including Accenture, AI21 Labs, Automation Anywhere, BCG, Behavox, Capgemini, Cognizant, Deloitte, Elemental Cognition, HCLtech, TCS, Wipro, and Zeotap. Through the Gen AI Partner Initiative, these companies will have access to important resources like Gen AI journey maps and badging, and accelerated go-to-market tracks.The Google Workspace Sandbox Toolkit benefit now includes Duet AI at no cost to partners, so our partners can quickly help customers understand the benefits and capabilities of Duet AI while accelerating their sales cycles.We’re increasing the number of new partners who have earned our Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability designation, which recognizes those partners whose solutions help customers meet their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. For example, partner ESG Book is now enabling customers to access its ESG data management and disclosure platform on Google Cloud, and Snowfox.ai is providing customers with climate insights about their supply chains through its AI-based emissions management tool.We’re launching a new Partner Expertise designation: Google SecOps Services Delivery Expertise. This Expertise is for service provider partners who have demonstrated success implementing and onboarding customers to our Chronicle SIEM or SOAR solution. Our partners can learn more about how to earn this new Expertise through our Partner Advantage portal.Finally, we’re expanding the tools available to partners through the Delivery Readiness Index (DRI). DRI helps partners precisely identify the resources and skills they need to successfully complete any given customers’ project. Today, we’re adding more gen AI learning courses and tools to DRI, including a new course, “Implementing Generative AI with Vertex AI.” We now offer partners more than 45 Challenge Labs and more than 160 training courses, available through their DRI profiles.Of course, none of these new initiatives would be possible without innovative partners who bring Google Cloud solutions to life for our customers. Today, we’re excited to announce new partnerships with UK- and EMEA-based organizations that will help scale AI technology and services available to customers, including: Crayon, an IT services company operating across 46 countries, who is launching an important new Google Cloud AI Center of Excellence, which will help customers pilot and deploy products like Duet AI, Vertex AI and accelerate their time to value with AI overall.Weaviate is bringing its open-source, AI-Native vector database to Google Cloud Marketplace so developers can quickly build and deploy gen AI apps that meet enterprise needs with the convenience of being billed through Google Cloud.

Supporting innovation from UK and EMEA startups

Many exciting startups are founded and headquartered in the UK. We’re proud that Google Cloud infrastructure, as well as products and services like BigQuery and Vertex AI, are helping these fast-growing businesses scale and succeed. In fact, half of all gen AI startups headquartered in the UK today are Google Cloud customers, including innovators like Mystic and VEED.

Startups are partnering with Google Cloud to access our trusted and scalable infrastructure, powerful AI models and tooling, data cloud capabilities, and important routes to market like Google Cloud Marketplace. Today, we’re announcing several more innovative UK startups who have selected Google Cloud to build new products, platforms, and experiences:

Callsign provides identity, fraud detection, and authentication solutions for banks and retailers, and has now selected Google Cloud as its cloud provider to build and launch its next-generation SaaS platform. It will also make its platform available on Google Cloud Marketplace.ComplyAdvantage, which provides AI-driven fraud and anti-money laundering risk detection solutions for financial services organizations, is now partnering with Google Cloud to utilize our data cloud and Vertex AI to develop important new capabilities that will help customers detect increasingly sophisticated financial crime strategies with gen AI.Gumtree operates a popular classifieds marketplace in the UK, and has migrated its entire data estate and infrastructure to Google Cloud to enable faster growth and improve their customers’ experiences.OnBuy.com, recently ranked as Europe’s fastest growing ecommerce business, is now migrating its entire technology stack to Google Cloud. The OnBuy team will utilize Google Cloud infrastructure and products like Cloud Run, Google Kubernetes Engine, BigQuery, and Vertex AI to power its online marketplace, which connects thousands of small and medium-sized businesses as well as industry leading brands with more than 6 million consumers in the UK.Peak, an AI platform that optimizes inventories, pricing and customer personalization, has launched its new product, Co:Driver. Powered by Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and the PaLM 2 model, Co:Driver adds a new natural language interface to Peak’s popular AI platform and AI applications.VEED, a UK-based online video editing startup with more than 7 million users, has chosen Google Cloud as a core component of its generative AI features. VEED is making investments in powerful models built on Vertex AI to usher in a new era of video creation and to further their mission of making video editing accessible to everyone.

Last month, we also welcomed 13 AI startups in Europe and Israel to our new Google for Startups: AI First Accelerator. The Accelerator program is a 10-week, equity-free program for Seed to Series A startups focused on building AI, and will help high-potential startups based in Europe and Israel grow with the best of Google through a mix of in-person and virtual activities, Google Cloud credits, 1:1 mentoring, group-learning sessions, and workshops on product design, business growth, and more.

You can learn more about Cloud Next London ‘23 here.