The new way to Cloud
On Tuesday, May 14th, the Google Cloud Summit in Sydney brought together industry leaders, innovators, and technologists to explore Google's latest advancements in AI and cloud computing. This event showcased how Google is pushing the boundaries of technology, making AI an integral part of business strategies.
AI: From Research to Reality
Will Grannis, Google's CTO for Google Cloud, emphasized the shift in AI, moving from a research focus to generating real business value. The summit highlighted the exciting potential of custom-built AI agents, that leverage your data and integrate seamlessly with your existing business logic and processes.
Vertex AI Agent Builder empowers businesses to design, deploy, and manage intelligent conversational AI agents and process automation agents with a no-code approach and minimal budget. Companies are already deploying these agents to automate tasks, enhance creativity, secure data, develop code, and provide intelligent customer interactions.
Key announcements from Google I/O 2024
Several significant updates that were only announced hours earlier at Google I/O conference in San Francisco were shared, including:
Gemini Flash: A new multimodal model offering enhanced efficiency and performance, providing better ROI and lower total costs for AI implementations.
Gemma 2: An open-sourced model enabling developers to integrate AI seamlessly into their applications and devices.
Gemini for Workspace: This pervasive AI agent offers assistance across various Google Workspace applications, making workflow more seamless and integrated.
Nine's AI Journey with Google Cloud
Suzie Cardy, Nine’s Chief Data Officer, discussed how Nine has harnessed the power of Google Cloud and AI to drive business value. Key initiatives included:
Developing a single view of their customers.
Implementing self-service data visualisation tools for content producers.
Building the Nine Tribes Audience Segmentation and Ad Targeting product.
Creating data clean rooms for audience matching.
Nine Express: Converting news scripts to articles.
Nine Predict: Achieving 98% accuracy in predicting ad inventory.
Automatically Generating archival footage for new stories.
Practical AI Demonstrations
Two practical demonstrations showcased the real-world applications of AI agents:
Fashion Retailer Demo: A consumers asks an AI agent to find a jacket worn by a musician in a video clip, the agents finds the jacket, checks stock availability, suggests complementary products, and facilitates the purchase.
Home Rental Analysis Demo: An AI agent automatically writes a short term listing, by analysing photos and videos of the rental property, and generating a detailed descriptions.
Key Lessons for Implementing AI Solutions
Didier Elzinga, CEO of Cultureamp, provided a thought-provoking perspective: "It's not that AI will take our jobs; it is that someone using AI will take our jobs." This highlights the importance of embracing AI tools to stay competitive in the current landscape.
To help you on your AI journey, Grannis outlined three crucial steps for successfully implementing AI:
Start with a Great Problem: Identify a significant challenge or opportunity where AI can make a substantial impact.
Build a Strong Data Foundation: Ensure you have a robust data infrastructure to support AI initiatives.
Establish the Right Feedback Mechanism: Implement systems to continuously learn and improve the AI outputs.