Google Announces New AI-Powered Cloud Capabilities

Google announced a number of AI-driven improvements to its cloud offering at its Google Cloud Next event in San Francisco held at the end of August.

Key evolutions include updates to products in Infrastructure, Data and AI, Workspace Collaboration, and Cybersecurity. While AWS and Azure remain the leaders in cloud technologies, Google is focusing on building its standing in AI-first solutions.

Google’s many improvements to its AI-optimized cloud infrastructure will enable companies to efficiently run data centers with the Google Distributed Cloud. Enhancements focus on improving performance to allow companies to have scalable and cost-effective solutions to train generative AI (GenAI) models and large language models (LLMs).

Vertex AI allows companies to build, deploy and scale machine learning models. Updates to this platform include improvements to existing models, along with new additions Llama 2 and Code Llama from Meta, Technology Innovation Institute’s Falcon LLM, and the upcoming Claude 2.

Google reinforced the importance of data security. Companies that use models from Vertex AI with their own data remain in control. The data and prompts used by companies in their private configuration are not shared with other users or accessible by the foundation model.

Released in May, Duet AI is “an always-on AI collaborator that is deeply integrated in Google Workspace and Google Cloud.” Key enhancements announced at the conference include the integration of Duet AI in Google Meet and Google Chat. Improvements include the ability of Duet AI to take notes in video meetings and summarizing content in chats with improved interface and search capabilities.

Updates to Google’s Data and AI Cloud focus on simplifying analytics. One of its biggest announcements is the launch of BigQuery Studio, “a unified, collaborative workspace for Google Cloud’s data analytics suite that helps accelerate data to AI workflows.” Like most AI-driven solutions, BigQuery will bring a unified interface for all data teams and offers tools to maximize productivity and collaboration.

Google Cloud Next is a yearly conference hosted by Google to share its most recent updates to Google Cloud. It brings together speakers and sponsors from a variety of industries to share their experiences and views on the future of cloud technologies. The 2023 event was the first in-person event since 2019 and had more than 12,000 attendees.