Since the emergence of generative AI about a year and a half ago, there has been an ongoing discussion about its most beneficial applications. While the initial amusing conversations and clever poems were entertaining, it has become clear that the significant opportunities for AI lie within the realm of business.
At Google Cloud, our customers and partners have unearthed genuine potential for integrating generative AI into new processes, enhancing efficiencies, and fostering innovation. Evidently, over 300 organizations showcasing their achievements this week at the Next event in Las Vegas serve as testament to this progress.
Within a short span, these organizations have transitioned from AI merely providing answers to making predictions and now to deploying generative AI agents. What sets these AI agents apart is their ability to take actions to accomplish specific objectives, such as guiding a shopper to find the perfect pair of shoes, assisting an employee in selecting suitable health benefits, or aiding nursing staff in smoother patient hand-offs during shift changes.
As we collaborate with customers, we consistently hear that their focus has shifted towards enhancing productivity, automating processes, and enhancing the overall customer experience. These objectives are now being realized through the AI agents they are developing in six crucial domains: customer service, employee empowerment, creative idea generation and production, data analysis, code generation, and cybersecurity.
The transformative abilities of generative AI and AI foundation models, with their new multimodal capabilities, are instrumental in enabling agents to undertake tasks across various communication modes including text, voice, video, audio, code, and more. With human oversight, these agents can engage in conversations, reason, learn, and make decisions effectively.
