Riding big-time momentum after surging to #1 in the Cloud Wars Top 10 and growing an eye-popping 48% in Q4, Google Cloud this week will likely disclose big enhancements for AI security, AI sovereignty, and Gemini Enterprise when it hosts 30,000 close friends at its Next event in Las Vegas.
With its broad and expanding product portfolio as well as a world-class ecosystem network, Google Cloud will no doubt release dozens of announcements at the Next event while also showcasing more than 500 customers that are jumping into the AI Economy with support from Google Cloud’s cloud and AI infrastructure, database enhancements, Gemini Enterprise services, agentic AI applications, and more.
The big Next event in Las Vegas comes at a propitious time for Google Cloud because the company has carefully calibrated its expansive set of AI technologies and services to address the top priorities of its customers:
- employing AI to advance business goals/outcomes;
- optimizing all of a customers’ data for AI;
- driving revenue growth;
- creating excellent customer experiences;
- accelerating operations; and
- achieving all of those outcomes with world-class security and privacy.
Google Cloud will no doubt use Next to roll out enhanced capabilities for all of those objectives, but I want to take a deeper look at why I believe AI security, AI sovereignty, and AI ecosystem programs will be particularly vital.
1. AI Security. In a recent report called AI Risk and Resilience, Google Cloud’s Mandiant threat intelligence team highlighted an ominous threat centered on the malicious use of AI:
In 2025, the cybersecurity landscape shifted as threat actors moved from experimental use of AI to full operationalization. Adversaries have moved beyond the simple use of large language models to draft phishing content and are now deploying adaptive tools capable of rewriting code, and using AI agents that navigate systems with minimal human oversight. These capabilities have fundamentally changed the speed and scale of attacks, marking a distinct evolution that demands a shift in defensive strategy.
Well, isn’t that just wonderful! Just what the bad guys needed: more tools with which to cause havoc and disruption across the globe.
But just as Google Cloud was ahead of its competitors in enhancing its cybersecurity prowess with the acquisition of Mandiant few years ago and the recent completion of its acquisition of Wiz, I am certain that at Next the company will release a slew of new technologies and solutions that will enable the good guys to stay ahead of the miscreants. Google Cloud recently offered a blueprint for the advanced thinking around security that we’ll surely see unveiled this week: “AI has proven to be a capable force multiplier for security operations, offering clear benefits by accelerating investigations and analysis. Navigating the year ahead will require using AI-powered security tools to stay ahead of AI-enabled threats, closing gaps and vulnerabilities through testing and validation, and ensuring that teams feel confident in their ability to respond.”
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2. AI Sovereignty. For the past couple of years, Google Cloud has been calling out and deconstructing the false choice that some customers perceive — and some vendors exploit — that forces customers to perceive they are, in the words of Google Cloud, “caught in a paradox that Europe must choose between autonomy and growth.” (While this issue certainly applies very directly in Europe, I believe it is equally relevant across the globe and will only become more important over the next 2-3 years.)
True to its long-standing strategic imperative to lean heavily on superb partners to drive better outcomes for customers and better results for Google Cloud, the company is enlisting some of its global partners to become force-multipliers in meeting the increasingly demanding sovereignty needs of customers.
Going back to that painful paradox of autonomy versus growth, Google Cloud says “We believe that this is a false choice, and a premise that we challenge. Our position is rooted in partnership, choice, and security.”
At Next, I think we’ll see some big new announcements about a new wave of customers pairing with Google Cloud to create sovereignty solutions by industry, geographic region, and other filters, building off a strong foundation created a year ago:
We have also forged key partnerships in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States to help deliver these sovereign solutions, including Schwarz Group and T-Systems (Germany), S3NS (France), Minsait (Spain), Telecom Italia (Italy), Clarence (Belgium and Luxembourg), CNTXT (Saudi Arabia), KDDI (Japan), and World Wide Technology (United States).
3. Gemini Enterprise enhancements. For one of Google Cloud’s most-successful product launches ever, Next will provide an ideal setting to showcase not only new features but also more opportunities for Google Cloud’s excellent global ecosystem of partners to add their special skills, products, and insights to the power of Gemini Enterprise. In fact, I’m expecting the Next event to highlight as many go-to-market innovations for Gemini Enterprise as product enhancements.
Final Thought
Just a reminder that in my opinion, Google Cloud has become the world’s pre-eminent supplier of AI and cloud solutions, due in equal parts to its technological prowess and its maniacal focus on co-creating innovation and value with its customers.
The company will report its Q1 results a week after the Next event on April 29, and I’m expecting the company’s powerful momentum to continue per my Q1 growth projection for Google Cloud of 44%.
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