The Year in Google Cloud — 2025

February

There are AI products, and then there are products enhanced by AI. This month’s top launch, Gen AI Toolbox for Databases, falls into the latter category. This was also the month readers got serious about learning, with blogs about upskilling, resources, and certifications topping the charts. The fruits of our partnership with Anthropic made an appearance in our best-read list, and engineering leaders detailed Google’s extensive efforts to optimize AI system energy consumption. Execs ate up an opinion piece about how agents will unlock insights into unstructured data (which makes up 90% of enterprises’ information assets), and digested a sobering report on AI and cybercrime. During the Mobile World Congress event, we saw considerable interest in our work with telco leaders like Vodafone Italy and Amdocs.

Product and company news:

• Announcing public beta of Gen AI Toolbox for Databases
• Get Google Cloud certified in 2025—and see why the latest research says it matters
• Discover Google Cloud careers and credentials in our new Career Dreamer
• Announcing Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Anthropic’s first hybrid reasoning model, is available on Vertex AI

Thought leadership

• Designing sustainable AI: A deep dive into TPU efficiency and lifecycle emissions
• From dark data to bright insights: How AI agents make data simple
• New AI, cybercrime reports underscore need for security best practices

Customer stories

• Transforming data: How Vodafone Italy modernized its data architecture in the cloud
• AI-powered network optimization: Unlocking 5G's potential with Amdocs

March

Back when we announced it, our intent to purchase cybersecurity startup Wiz was Google’s largest deal ever, and the biggest tech deal of the year. We built on that security momentum with the launch of AI Protection. We also spread our wings to the Nordics with a new region, and announced the Gemma 3 open model on Vertex AI. Meanwhile, we explained the threat that North Korean IT workers pose to employers, gave readers a peek under the hood of the Colossus file system, and reminisced about what we’ve learned over 25 years of building data centers. Readers were interested in Levi’s approach to data and weaving it into future AI efforts, and in honor of the GDC Festival of Gaming, our AI partners shared some new perspectives on “living games.”

Product and company news

• Google + Wiz: Strengthening Multicloud Security
• Announcing AI Protection: Security for the AI era
• Hej Sverige! Google Cloud launches new region in Sweden
• Announcing Gemma 3 on Vertex AI

Thought leadership

• The ultimate insider threat: North Korean IT workers
• Colossus under the hood: How we deliver SSD performance at HDD prices
• 3 key lessons from 25 years of warehouse scale computing

Customer stories

• Levi's seamless data strategy: How tailor-made AI keeps an icon from getting hemmed in
• Co-op mode: New partners driving the future of gaming with AI

April

With April came Google Cloud Next, our flagship annual conference. From Firebase Studio, Ironwood TPUs, and Google Agentspace, to Vertex AI, Cloud WAN, and Gemini 2.5, it’s hard to limit ourselves to just a few stories, there were so many bangers (for the whole list, there’s always the event recap). Meanwhile, our systems team discussed innovations to keep data center infrastructure’s thermal envelope in check. And at the RSA Conference, we unveiled our vision for the agentic security operations center of the future. On the customer front, we highlighted the startups who played a starring role at Next, and took a peek behind the curtain of The Wizard of Oz at Sphere.

Product and company news

• Introducing Firebase Studio and agentic developer tools to build with Gemini
• Introducing Ironwood TPUs and new innovations in AI Hypercomputer
• Vertex AI offers new ways to build and manage multi-agent systems
• Scale enterprise search and agent adoption with Google Agentspace
• Cloud WAN: Connect your global enterprise with a network built for the AI era
• Gemini 2.5 brings enhanced reasoning to enterprise use cases
• The dawn of agentic AI in security operations at RSAC 2025

Thought leadership

• AI infrastructure is hot. New power distribution and liquid cooling infrastructure can help
• 3 new ways to use AI as your security sidekick

Customer stories

• Global startups are building the future of AI on Google Cloud
• The AI magic behind Sphere’s upcoming 'The Wizard of Oz' experience

May

School was almost out, but readers got back into learning mode to get certified as generative AI leaders. You were also excited about new gen AI media models in Vertex AI, the availability of Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4. We also learned that you’re very excited to use AI to generate SQL code, and about using Cloud Run as a destination for your AI apps. We outlined the steps for building a well-defined data strategy, and showed governments how AI can actually improve their security posture. And on the customer front, we launched our “Cool Stuff Customers Built” round-ups, and ran stories from Formula E and MLB.

• Google Cloud announces first-of-its-kind generative AI leader certification
• Expanding Vertex AI with the next wave of generative AI media models
• Announcing Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4 on Vertex AI

Thought leadership

• Getting AI to write good SQL: Text-to-SQL techniques explained
• AI deployments made easy: Deploy to Cloud Run from AI Studio or any MCP client
• Building a data strategy for the AI era
• How governments can use AI to improve threat detection and reduce cost

Customer stories

• Cool Stuff Customers Built: May Edition
• Pushing the limits of electric mobility: Formula E's Mountain Recharge
• Tuning in with AI: How MLB My Daily Story creates truly personalized highlight videos

June

Up until this point, the promise of generative AI was largely around text and code. The launch of Veo 3 changed all that. Developers writing and deploying AI apps saw the availability of GPUs on Cloud Run as a big win, and we continued our steady drumbeat of Gemini innovation with 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite. We also shared our thoughts on securing AI agents. And to learn how to actually build these agents, readers turned to stories about Box, the British real estate firm Schroders, and French luxury conglomerate LVMH (home of Louis Vuitton, Channel, Sephora and more).

• You dream it, Veo creates it: Veo 3 is now available for everyone in public preview on Vertex AI
• Cloud Run GPUs, now GA, makes running AI workloads easier for everyone
• Gemini momentum continues with launch of 2.5 Flash-Lite and general availability of 2.5 Flash and Pro on Vertex AI

Thought leadership

• Ask OCTO: Making sense of AI agents
• Cloud CISO Perspectives: How Google secures AI agents

Customer stories

• The secret to document intelligence: Box builds Enhanced Extract Agents with A2A framework
• How Schroders built its multi-agent financial analysis research assistant
• Inside LVMH's perfectly manicured data estate, where luxury AI agents are taking root

July

Readers took a break from reading about AI to read about network infrastructure — the new Sol transatlantic cable, to be precise. Then it was back to AI: new video generation models in Vertex; a crucial component for building stateful, context-aware agents; and a new toolset for connecting BigQuery data to Agent Development Kit (ADK) and Multi-Cloud Protocol (MCP) environments. Developers cheered the integration between Cloud Run and Docker Compose, and executive audiences enjoyed a listicle on actionable, real-world uses for AI agents.

On the security front, we took a back-to-basics approach this month, exploring the persistence of some cloud security problems. And then, back to AI again, with our Big Sleep agent. Readers were also interested in how AI is alleviating record-keeping for nurses at HCA Healthcare, Ulta Beauty’s data warehousing and mobile record keeping initiatives, and how SmarterX migrated from Snowflake to BigQuery.

• Strengthening network resilience with the Sol transatlantic cable
• Veo 3 and Veo 3 Fast are now generally available on Vertex AI
• Announcing Vertex AI Agent Engine Memory Bank available for everyone in preview
• BigQuery meets ADK & MCP: Accelerate agent development with BigQuery's new first-party toolset
• From localhost to launch: Simplify AI app deployment with Cloud Run and Docker Compose

Thought leadership

• Secure cloud. Insecure use. (And what you can do about it)
• Our Big Sleep agent makes a big leap

Customer stories

• How nurses are charting the future of AI at America's largest hospital network, HCA Healthcare
• Ulta Beauty redefines beauty retail with BigQuery
• SmarterX’s migration from Snowflake to BigQuery accelerated model building and cut costs in half

August

AI is compute- and energy-intensive; in a new technical paper, we released concrete numbers about our AI infrastructure’s power consumption. Then people went [nano] bananas for Gemini 2.5 Flash Image on Vertex AI, and developers got a jump on their AI projects with a wealth of technical blueprints to work from. The summer doldrums didn’t stop our security experts from tackling the serious challenge of cyber-enabled fraud. We also took a closer look at the specific agentic tools empowering workers at Wells Fargo, and how Keeta processes 11 million blockchain transactions per second with Spanner.

• How much energy does Google’s AI use? We did the math
• Building next-gen visuals with Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (aka nano-banana) on Vertex AI
• 101+ gen AI use cases with technical blueprints

Thought leadership

• New Threat Horizons report details evolving risks — and defenses
• How CISOs and boards of directors can help fight cyber-enabled fraud
• How AI-powered weather forecasting can transform energy operations

Customer stories

• How Wells Fargo is using Google Cloud AI to empower its workforce with agentic tools
• How Keeta processes 11 million financial transactions per second on the blockchain with Spanner

September

AI is cool tech, but how do you monetize it? One answer is the Agent Payment Protocol, or AP2. Developers and data scientists preparing for AI flocked to blogs about new Data Cloud offerings, the 2025 DORA Report, and new trainings. Executives took in our thoughts on building an agentic data strategy, and took notes on the best prompts with which to kickstart their AI usage. And because everybody is impacted by the AI era, including business leaders, we explained what it means to be “bilingual” in AI and security. Then, at Google's AI Builders Forum, startups described how Google’s AI, infrastructure, and services are supporting their growth. Not to be left out, enterprises like Target and Mr. Cooper also showed off their AI chops.

• Powering AI commerce with the new Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
• The new data scientist: From analyst to agentic architect
• Announcing the 2025 DORA Report: State of AI-Assisted Software Development
• Back to AI school: New Google Cloud training to future-proof your AI skills

Thought leadership

• Building better data platforms, for AI and beyond
• Boards should be ‘bilingual’ in AI, security to gain advantage
• A leader’s guide to five essential AI prompts

Customer stories

• How Google Cloud’s AI tech stack powers today’s startups
• From query to cart: Inside Target’s search bar overhaul with AlloyDB AI
• How Mr. Cooper assembled a "team" of AI agents to handle complex mortgage questions

October

Welcome to the Gemini Enterprise era, which brings enhanced security, data control, and advanced agent capabilities to large organizations. To help you prepare, we relaunched a variety of enhancements to our learning platform, and added new commerce and security programs. And while developers versed themselves on the finer points of Veo prompts, we discussed securing the AI supply chain, building AI agents for cybersecurity and defense, and a new vision on economic threat modeling. We partnered with PayPal to enable commerce in AI chats, Germany’s Planck Institute showed how AI can help share deep scientific expertise, and DZ Bank pioneered ways to make blockchain-based finance more reliable.

• Introducing Gemini Enterprise
• Google Skills: Your new home for cloud learning
• Enabling a safe agentic web with reCAPTCHA
• Partners powering the Gemini Enterprise agent ecosystem

Thought leadership

• The ultimate prompting guide for Veo 3.1
• How you can secure your AI supply chain
• How Google Does It: Building AI agents for cybersecurity and defense

Customer stories

• Introducing an agentic commerce solution for merchants from PayPal and Google Cloud
• How the Max Planck Institute is sharing expert skills through multimodal agents
• The oracles of DeFi: How DZ Bank builds trustworthy data feeds for decentralized applications

November

Whether it was Gemini 3, Nana Banana Pro, or our seventh-generation Ironwood TPUs, this was the month that we gave enterprise customers access to all our latest and greatest AI tech. We also did a deep dive on how we built the largest-ever Kubernetes cluster, clocking in at a massive 130,000 nodes, and we announced a new collaboration with AWS to improve connectivity between clouds.

Meanwhile, we updated our findings on the adversarial misuse of AI by threat actors and on the ROI of AI for security, and executives vibed out on our piece about vibe coding. Then, just in time for the holidays, we took a look at how Mattel is using AI tools to revamp its toys, and Waze showed how it uses Memorystore to keep the holiday traffic flowing.

• Bringing Gemini 3 to Enterprise
• How Google Does It: Building the largest known Kubernetes cluster, with 130,000 nodes
• Announcing Nano Banana Pro for every builder and business
• Announcing Ironwood TPUs General Availability and new Axion VMs to power the age of inference
• AWS and Google Cloud collaborate to simplify multicloud networking

Thought leadership

• Recent advances in how threat actors use AI tools
• Beyond the hype: Analyzing new data on ROI of AI in security
• How vibe coding can help leaders move faster

Customer stories

• Mattel’s game changer: How AI is turning customer feedback into real-time product updates
• Waze keeps traffic flowing with 1M+ real-time reads per second on Memorystore

December

The year is winding down, but we still have lots to say. Early returns show that you were interested in how to mitigate the React2Shell vulnerability, support for MCP across Google services, and the early access launch of AlphaEvolve. And let’s not forget Gemini 3 Flash, which is turning heads with its high-level reasoning, plus amazing speed and a flexible cost profile.

What does this all mean for you and your future? It’s important to contextualize these technology developments, especially AI. For example, the DORA team put together a guide on how high-performing platform teams can integrate AI capabilities into their workflows, we discussed what it looks like to have an AI-ready workforce, and our Office of the CISO colleagues put out their 2026 cybersecurity predictions. More to the point (guard), you could do like Golden State Warrior Stephen Curry and turn to Gemini to analyze your game, to prepare for the year ahead. We’ll be watching on Christmas Day to see how Steph is faring with Gemini’s advice.

• Responding to React2Shell (CVE-2025-55182): Secure your React and Next.js workloads
  
• Announcing Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for Google services
  
• AlphaEvolve on Google Cloud: AI for agentic discovery and optimization
  
• Introducing Gemini 3 Flash: Intelligence and speed for enterprises
  

Thought leadership

• From adoption to impact: Putting the DORA AI Capabilities Model to work
  
• Is AI fluency the ingredient or the result of an AI-ready workforce?
  
• Our 2026 Cybersecurity Forecast report
  

Customer stories

• What Stephen Curry learned about his game from a custom Gemini agent