Next ’25 recap: AI-driven manufacturing and automotive

The Mandalay Bay Convention Center buzzed with innovation from April 9-11 at Google Cloud Next '25, painting a clear picture for attendees focused on the industrial sector: the future of manufacturing and automotive is intelligent, connected, edge-enabled, and undeniably driven by artificial intelligence. Throughout the event, we featured sessions highlighting how AI is helping tackle manufacturing's biggest challenges – enhancing operational efficiency, transforming the employee experience, enabling smarter product design, optimizing the edge, and forging deeper customer connections. We also shared how Google Cloud is delivering the necessary data foundation, AI tools, edge capabilities, and infrastructure to power this transformation.

In case you missed it, below are some of our favorite highlights from the event.

Key sessions and customer innovations

• AI-powered operations of the future: This core breakout session explored AI's transformative potential in manufacturing operations, sharing our perspectives on boosting productivity and efficiency, backed by research from Mckinsey. Industry leaders Honeywell and Micron provided firsthand accounts of implementing AI, discussing the foundational pillars needed to drive innovation at scale and achieve significant operational gains.

• AI, cloud, and edge: Unlocking innovation: This session directly addressed the convergence of AI across different environments critical to manufacturing. Experts from Google Cloud, along with customers Genuine Parts Company and Intenseye, and partner German Edge Cloud, explored how AI models, optimized cloud infrastructure, and edge hardware are unlocking new opportunities. These discussions covered delivering factory floor analytics, enhancing quality control, empowering staff, and transforming operations through innovative use cases.

• Churn analysis using Google Gemini: This lightning talk explored how understanding customer dynamics with AI is highly applicable to manufacturing's increasing focus on customer relationships. Using Gemini and BigQuery to analyze complex customer data helps automate insights, predict churn, and improve retention – all of which are vital for modern manufacturing businesses.

• Securing industrial operations in the cloud: This panel addresses the growing convergence of Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) through cloud adoption, highlighting both its transformative potential and inherent cybersecurity risks. The discussion focused on the advantages of cloud-enabled OT – including enhanced efficiency, scalability, data analytics, and resilience – while underscoring the imperative of embedding proactive security measures into industrial operations.

Experiencing the future: Manufacturing and automotive demos

The Google Cloud Showcase offered tangible glimpses into the AI-driven future, including critical edge capabilities.

1. Optimize factory operations with edge AI: This showcase demo focused specifically on enhancing factory performance using AI analytics at the edge. It demonstrated how Google Distributed Cloud and Vertex AI enable real-time operations monitoring, asset protection, and worker empowerment directly where the action happens, improving responsiveness and efficiency on the factory floor.

2. Automotive AI Agent for enhanced in-car multimodal assistance: This demo highlighted advanced AI agent capabilities, using Gemini and Vertex AI to enable an amazing AI-enabled, in-vehicle customer agent.

3. AI-powered operations for enterprise and factory data: This demo demonstrated how Manufacturing Data Engine and Cortex Framework can unify IT and OT data, creating the foundation for intelligent operations and grounding both cloud and edge AI models in real-time factory performance.

4. Meet the Volkswagen AI vehicle assistant: Volkswagen shared its new era of driver intelligence, centered around the AI-enabled myVW app. This experiential hub demonstrated how drivers can interact with their vehicles in transformative ways through natural language queries, intuitive vehicle information (like dashboard light explanations), and forward-looking AI features like AR tutorials and vehicle health diagnostics. The demo also previewed creative AI applications, such as personalized photo backdrops, highlighting the potential for enhanced customer engagement and vehicle interaction.

Recent announcements

We shared exciting new announcements and industry perspectives including:

• Mercedes-Benz is among the first automakers to implement Google Cloud’s Automotive AI Agent.

• Google Cloud will serve as Formula E’s Official Cloud Technology Services Partner and Official Cloud Security Partner as part of a new multi-year AI and technology partnership.

• Volkswagen is leveraging Google Cloud's industry-leading AI and machine learning capabilities, as well as expertise from Google Cloud Consulting, to power the new myVW Virtual Assistant. 

• Hyundai Motor Group and Google collaborate on enhanced navigation experience with Google Maps Platform. 

• Honeywell and Google Cloud to accelerate autonomous operations with AI Agents for the industrial sector.

• Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is integrating Gemini on Google Cloud into Ballie, its newest AI home companion robot, enabling more personalized and intelligent interactions for users

• Manufacturing Data Engine with Cortex Framework helping manufacturers unlock the full potential of their operational data and drive AI transformation.

• Google Cloud’s global head of manufacturing, Praveen Rao, was elected to the OPC Foundation’s Board of Directors

• Commentary by Praveen Rao: Google Cloud: Taking Gen AI in Manufacturing Beyond the Hype

• Commentary by Steve Basra: 5 ways generative AI will impact the auto industry in 2025

• More than a dozen reasons manufacturers are already seeing ROI on gen AI

• Google AI is helping address five urgent manufacturing challenges.

• The Top AI Trends of 2025 in the manufacturing and automotive industries.

The road ahead

Google Cloud Next '25 emphasized that AI, seamlessly integrated from cloud to edge, is central to the next industrial revolution. For manufacturers, the current focus is on practical applications delivering measurable results: boosting operational efficiency (Honeywell, Micron), security (Whirlpool), leveraging edge intelligence (Genuine Parts Company, Intenseye, German Edge Cloud), and gaining deeper customer insights. To succeed, manufacturing and automotive companies will need to embrace data, cloud, edge, and AI —  and we’re committed to providing the robust tools, technologies, and platform to lead this transformation.