Google Gemini Enterprise Is Growing AI Sales For 66degrees By 96 Percent. Here’s How.

‘We were the lead North American partner for Gemini Enterprise with over 90-plus new installs, and then at least a dozen customers that followed that with buying pods of engineers to build out custom agents on Gemini Enterprise,’ says 66degrees CEO Ben Kessler.

Fast-growing Google Cloud partner 66degrees is witnessing a nearly 100 percent spike in data and AI revenue growth thanks to Gemini Enterprise driving big customer wins.

“We were the lead North American partner for Gemini Enterprise with over 90-plus new installs, and then at least a dozen customers that followed that with buying pods of engineers to build out custom agents on Gemini Enterprise,” said 66degrees CEO Ben Kessler in an interview with CRN.

“The positive momentum in Google is creating a remarkable opportunity for partners because the doors are opening, the plumbing is put in with Gemini Enterprise, but then AI engineering and data engineering demand is flowing right through because of that wedge in the market from Google,” Kessler said.

The CEO said Gemini Enterprise is driving a slew of services sales and enabling Google Cloud partners to shift towards being services-led versus resale.

66degrees Transitions From Google Reseller To Services Star

Just a few years ago, 66degrees generated 90 percent of its revenue from Google resale such as Google Workspace licenses.

“Five years ago, 90 percent of our revenue was a mix of Google Workspace licenses and Google Cloud revenue that we were reselling. Today, that accounts for just 10 percent,” Kessler said. “So now 90 percent [of revenue] is coming through professional services or for building solutions for customers.”

66degrees is currently driving an AI and data services sales charge with the goal of soon becoming a top-tier Diamond partner in the new Google Cloud Partner Network.

“We are Google’s feet on the street to help them grow, but also build very specialized solutions that solve business problems,” said Kessler.

The Chicago-based company grew its AI and data revenue a whopping 96 percent year over year in fourth quarter 2025.

In an interview with CRN, Kessler explains how he’s winning Google Gemini Enterprise deals, 66degrees AI and data services momentum, and his thoughts on Google’s new partner program the Google Cloud Partner Network.

Gemini Enterprise is one of Google’s biggest AI solutions and investments. What are some customer use cases and does it stand out in the AI market?

It solves business problems. The base Gemini Enterprise allows you to connect into your systems, and then you can solve retail challenges, for example, that drive greater revenue. We’re building agents to handle custom business use cases.

We’re working on capabilities for a large cruise ship provider that’s enhancing the guest experience online and then on the ship.

We work traditionally with a large ski resort for enhancing the guest experience.

We were the lead North American partner for Gemini Enterprise with over 90-plus new installs, and then at least a dozen customers that followed that with buying pods of engineers to build out custom agents on Gemini Enterprise.

So Gemini Enterprise is the base. That’s the infrastructure.

Then we’ve built on top of that an agent development framework. So you put Gemini Enterprise in for the primary platform where your agents live. We build that out further so you have the plumbing in place.

And then you build out custom agents that solve business use cases.

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How is Gemini Enterprise helping you drive data and AI services sales?

Gemini Enterprise, in many ways, is the gateway to building agents in your business that drive better customer engagement or drive improvement to your business processes that allow agents to handle business processes that extend your human workforce. Frankly, it’s been really amazing.

We love that it’s a great landing spot, but it’s also opened the door for us for professional services, because it’s not as easy to plug and play an agent.

But what we’re recognizing is that in order to truly build and train agents that plug-in and live within the platform of an enterprise, we have to modernize companies’ data.

Then we have to build data models that train the agents. We have to make data available. We have to model the data. And then we have to train the agents.

For instance, a retailer says, ‘Hey, I’d like to have an agent that helps promote emerging products for my customers or for my retail buyer online?’ There’s a whole data model that’s behind that.

Google’s done some great work on being able to connect Google with a Databricks instance, with an Oracle instance, with an SAP instance, to provide that data in order to build that agent that helps a customer.

That’s also created a wave of professional services opportunities to create the agent to solve the business use case.

Where else is Gemini Enterprise driving AI sales and customer momentum for 66degrees?

With Gemini Enterprise, the door opens up for saying, ‘Hey, I actually need data engineering to get my data in shape to actually put this in place.”

Gemini Enterprise found its legs in quarter two [2025]. Our Q4 bookings grew 96 percent in data and AI.

So just seeing the momentum installing Gemini Enterprise, opening the door, people seeing that the power and the impact of this to drive AI personnel needs to build these agents.

But our AI demand is one thing. Our data engineering demand is another thing, to say, ‘How do you actually prepare your data pipelines and move?’ Our [customer win with] Honeywell is one example of that.

The positive momentum in Google is creating a remarkable opportunity for partners because the doors are opening, the plumbing is put in with Gemini Enterprise, but then AI engineering and data engineering demand is flowing right through because of that wedge in the market from Google.

So it’s really good from a services standpoint that is allowing us and other partners to shift to be a services partner.

Our shift to being very, very focused on end market solutions has opened up a tremendous need for our AI engineers and our data engineers.

As an all-in Google Cloud partner, what are your thoughts on the new Google Cloud Partner Network program?

The new program is set up to serve services partners and to help align services partners. I’ve been in the portal and we’ve worked extensively with [Google Cloud program leaders] who accepted a lot of our feedback on establishing the new program and certainly the new portal access.

Additionally, it will allow for horizontal specialization.

So data analytics, AI, Gemini Enterprise, etc., but it will also allow for vertical specialization as well, which is really exciting.

We’ve gotten very deep on HCLS [healthcare and life sciences], on retail, and then manufacture areas where Google wants to focus.

We led North America last year with Gemini Enterprise installs. That’s a huge drive for the field this year. So the portal, the new program, will allow us to continue to just reinforce that message. We had 90-plus new installs of Google Gemini leading North American so the portable just continues to reinforce it.

Proof is in the pudding: does that lead to more leads? Does that lead to more deals? I do think this opens the door for specialists like 66degrees to be found by more Google sellers and Google field teams.

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From a partner standpoint, are you bullish about Google Cloud in 2026?

Yes. Google is providing great AI and data technology. But they need partners to provide very specific industry solutions that solve business problems.

From a partner standpoint, they gave us advance warning on the resale changes over the past two years. That’s driven us to change our business model and change where our investments are.

We wouldn’t have had 96 percent growth in quarter year over year growth in quarter four [2025] if we hadn’t made that shift.

We have a very clear path and a very small gap to close to become a Diamond partner. So we are a Premier partner, but we’re within weeks of closing that gap of a Diamond partnership.

Google across the board with their industry groups and their regional groups are partner-first. We’re certainly seeing that.

The way they’re managing their business and their profitability is by having partners go first.

We are Google’s feet on the street to help them grow, but also build very specialized solutions that solve business problems.