Google Cloud launches AI Agent Space amid rising competition

As we’ve covered here before at VentureBeat, the cloud computing wars have swiftly morphed into the AI wars, with leading cloud computing divisions Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) all rolling out new tools for customers to access, use, deploy, and build atop a range of AI models.

Therefore, it was not too surprising to learn his week that Google Cloud was offering a new AI agent ecosystem program called AI Agent Space.

This initiative empowers businesses to discover, deploy, and co-create AI agents designed to automate tasks, enhance customer experiences, and optimize operations.

With a growing focus on the enterprise, Google’s announcement positions it as a major player alongside competitors like Microsoft, SAP, and Salesforce.

Google’s ecosystem is built around enabling partners to develop highly customizable AI agents by providing them with robust tools and resources, including early previews of Google’s AI technologies, direct support from engineering teams, and best practices to streamline development.

In addition, Google says it will promote new agents through its Google Cloud Marketplace to allow partners to scale the agents they make to new, interested audiences.

It makes sense and is a win-win for Google, showing that it has a robust catalog of agents for companies to select from and ideally, more users coming to it and Google Cloud as a result.

Current agents built by enterprises atop Google AI models and Google Cloud

Interestingly, Google chose the announcement of AI Agent Space to highlight other agents built internally by its Google Cloud customers and partners, though these solutions aren’t yet, for the most part, available on the AI Agent Space.

Presumably, Google wanted to show what is possible with its tools and how businesses could port their internal agents over to the AI Agent Space and sell them as SaaS solutions there.

Among them are:

• “Accenture is transforming customer support at a major retailer by offering convenient self-service options through virtual assistants, enhancing the overall customer experience.
• Bain supports SEB’s wealth management division with an AI agent that enhances end-customer conversations with suggested responses and generates call summaries that help increase efficiency by 15%.  
• BCG provides a sales optimization tool to improve the effectiveness and impact of insurance advisors. 
• Capgemini optimizes the ecommerce experience by helping retailers accept customer orders through new revenue channels and to accelerate the order-to-cash process for digital stores.
• Cognizant helps legal teams draft contracts, assigning risk scores and recommendations for how to optimize operational impact.  
• Deloitte offers a “Care Finder” agent as part of its Agent Fleet, helping care seekers find in-network providers often in less than a minute — significantly faster than the average call time of 5-8 minutes.
• HCLTech helps predict and eliminate different types of defects on manufacturing products with its manufacturing quality agent, Insight.
• Infosys optimizes digital marketplaces for a leading consumer brand manufacturer, providing actionable insights on inventory planning, promotions, and product descriptions. 
• PwC uses AI agent technology to help oncology clinics streamline administrative work so that doctors can optimize their time with patients.
• TCS helps build persona-based AI agents contextualized with enterprise knowledge to accelerate software development.
• Wipro supports a national healthcare provider in using agent technology to develop and adjust contracts, streamlining a complex and time-consuming task while improving accuracy.“

Competing Solutions from Microsoft, SAP, and Salesforce

Google’s announcement came on the heels of similarly positioned AI agent initiatives from rivals including Microsoft with its Copilot Studio, which has emerged as a leader in the AI agent space. More than 100,000 organizations creating or editing AI agents since its launch. At its Ignite conference in November 2024, Microsoft announced major updates, including integration with 1,800 large language models (LLMs) in Azure, offering enterprises unparalleled flexibility, autonomous agents, and multi-agent collaboration through its “agent mesh” architecture.

This makes it a strong option for large organizations with complex IT landscapes

Meanwhile, SAP recently updated its Joule AI assistant to offer collaborative AI agents designed to break down silos and unify workflows across business functions. Joule’s agents work collectively to address challenges such as payment disputes or supply chain disruptions, leveraging SAP’s deep integration with ERP, CRM, and HR systems.

Furthermor, Salesforce’s Agentforce, launched in September 2024, integrates AI agents into its vast ecosystem, leveraging its Data Cloud to enhance service, sales, and marketing functions.

While Microsoft and SAP focus on enterprise integration and cross-functional workflows, and Salesforce leans on low-code accessibility, Google stands out for its partner-driven flexibility and open ecosystem. By empowering partners to co-develop agents tailored to specific industries, Google fosters innovation while offering customers a diverse range of solutions.

Google’s marketplace model ensures that businesses can choose from a variety of pre-built agents or work with partners to create custom solutions.

This contrasts with Microsoft’s large-scale, infrastructure-driven approach and SAP’s process-unifying agents, making Google’s ecosystem particularly appealing to organizations with diverse and evolving needs.

Yet, in terms of raw numbers, Google’s AI Studio remains behind the competition. The Google blog post announcement noted that its AI Agent Space is already live with “solutions from select partners” and the company “plan[s] to add hundreds of additional AI agents over the coming months.”

But at present, VentureBeat’s viewing of the AI Agent Space revealed only 19 distinct agent models available for use, a fry cry from the hundreds or thousands available on cloud rivals’ solutions.