Why Google’s AI FDE Strategy Beats AWS, Microsoft, Anthropic And Others: Execs Explain

Google Cloud director Samrah Khan and 66degrees CEO Ben Kessler explain why Google Cloud’s forward-deployed engineers (FDEs) strategy beats the competition due to its partner-centric focus and massive customer AI sales momentum.

Google Cloud’s huge partner-centric forward-deployed engineers (FDE) investment and strategy is unique in the market compared to the likes of Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Microsoft and other AI market leaders.

Google is separating itself from the competition through its $750 million FDE partner investment, full-stack AI strategy and rapidly growing Google Cloud AI business, Google’s Samrah Khan explained.

“I’m not sure if Anthropic and some of the new frontier AI companies have the scale or the money or the investment to do what Google has done,” said Khan, when asked by CRN why channel partners should bet on Google Cloud’s FDE strategy versus AWS, Anthropic, Microsoft and others.

“And compared to the other hyperscalers, my answer is pretty straightforward: look at our third-quarter sales growth [of 103 percent year over year]. That’s more than twice the growth size any other hyperscaler had,” said Khan, director of global systems integrator and regional systems integrator partnerships for Google.

Google Cloud increased sales in Q3 2026 by a record-breaking 103 percent year over year to $30.7 billion.

AWS Q3 sales grew by 39 percent year over year, while Microsoft Azure revenue increased by 48 percent to $33.2 billion.

Khan (pictured) also highlighted the fact that 80 percent of Google Cloud customers also utilize Google AI products, along with 90 percent of Google’s Fortune 100 customers.

“So the adoption that we have seen across all industries—and I’m even talking about regulated industries like banking, state and local government, law firms and healthcare [and other] industries that generally don’t move very fast—are moving very fast when it comes to Google AI adoption,” she said. “Which is another reason why our partner FDE opportunity is unique.”

Google FDE Strategy And $750 Million Investment

This year, Google launched a $750 million investment for channel partners to help train, build and scale their own FDE businesses and employees.

The $750 million FDE partner investment included channel incentives around presales, AI POCs, and solution development; new co-selling alongside Google’s own FDE teams; free FDE training that turned employees into skilled FDEs; as well as the launch of the FDE-focused Gemini Enterprise Transformation partner program.

The CEO of Google Cloud AI partner 66degrees believes Google is at the top of the pyramid compared to competitors in terms of its FDE strategy for channel partners.

“Google made a $750 million investment in partner FDEs as opposed to some of these other hyperscalers or model companies that have hired their own FDEs,” said 66degrees CEO Ben Kessler.

“Specifically, Google made a significant bet on partner FDE programs as opposed to Anthropic and OpenAI that decided to invest in their own FDE teams and businesses. So Google is really solely partner-focused, where it’s to say, hey, we’re going to have this $750 million Gemini Enterprise Transformation program that we’re going to drive into our FDEs.”

Google Is Only Full-Stack AI Provider For Channel Partners

Another key reason why Google’s FDE strategy is besting the competition, Google’s Khan said, is the tech giant’s ability to provide a true full AI stack.

“We’re the only partner for our system integrators and our customers in the market that have a full unified stack from the chip all the way up to agents and application,” she said.

“Whether you talk about the models, the harness, the data stack, the infrastructure, the chips, etc. We’re also the only vendor out in the market that has a unified: research, build, develop, and deployment in-house. So it’s also what Google and Alphabet runs on,” Khan said. “Our sole focus is all things around helping every customer become an agentic enterprise.”

66degrees’ Kessler agreed that Google is the only company that brings the entire AI stack and lifecycle to customers which is one of the main goals of FDEs throughout the industry.

“Google is focused on ‘We’re going to create the chip. And then we’re going to create the data center. And then we’re going to actually create the agentic data stack. And then we’re going to create the AI models. And then we’re not only going to create the AI models, we’re going to give you an agent development kit to build custom agents. Then, we’re going to give monitoring. And then we’re going to give you the surface interface of Gemini Enterprise,’” Kessler said. “Nobody else has that.”

Kessler said both OpenAI and Anthropic have done a great job from a model and interface standpoint, but they don’t have the rest of the data and AI stack.

“Then if you look at AWS and Microsoft Azure, they have a lot of the bottom of the AI stack, but they don’t necessarily have the large language model and the interface from a Gemini Enterprise standpoint,” he said. “Google is the one hyperscaler that brings everything together.”

Google’s FDE Gemini Enterprise Transformation Partner Program

Google’s new Gemini Enterprise Transformation (GET) program is focused on training and enabling channel partners to increase their FDE headcount, while also bringing in new customer opportunities.

The program aligns Google partners who are building their FDE practices with large customers to transition enterprises from basic AI pilots to scaled, production-ready agentic AI operations.

“The GET program is this partner funding mechanism that has really allowed us to grow our business,” said the 66degrees CEO. “It has really allowed Google to drive their AI platform Gemini Enterprise and Vertex and their other AI capabilities into the market. It’s allowed us to really build AI into customers’ workflows.”

The program deploys Google-trained FDEs directly alongside enterprise customers and partners to build, tune and operationalize custom AI agents.

“We’ll invest in partners in the presales funding process, POCs and building MVPs [Minimum Viable Products] for the customers. We will give partners funding to develop Google Gemini-powered industry-specific platforms,” said Khan, regarding the GET program.

Google will also give partners dedicated training to “make sure that we certify their people to be Google FDE certified and Google Agentic AI-certified,” she said.

Thanks to Google Cloud’s FDE charge, a good chunk of 66degrees employees are now trained FDEs.

“Right now, about 20 percent of our workforce is FDEs because we’ve really been able to double down,” said Kessler. “Because we’re leaning into Google’s FDE investment, we are really able to now turn that Google AI stack into business outcomes.”