Google Cloud’s $750M Partner Bet: Scaling Gemini AI With FDEs
‘We made sure that we have various different incentives, which are around presales funding, solution development, AI POCs, etc., that will be carved out for specific partners that have made a bet on Google’s AI platform,’ Google Director Samrah Khan tells CRN.
Google Cloud is putting $750 million behind a partner-led push to build an army of forward-deployed engineers—aiming to bust enterprises out of AI pilot purgatory and turn Gemini agents into engines of business transformation at scale.
Google’s rapidly growing $123 billion cloud unit is funding a slew of channel initiatives to achieve this, including free FDE training, co-engineering resources and financial incentives.
“We’re investing $750 million into our agentic platform, aka Gemini, with that funding going strictly toward partners that are really focused on helping our customers adopt our AI platform—whether it’s Gemini as an agent, Gemini for Workspace, etc.,” Samrah Khan (pictured), director of global systems integrator and regional systems integrator partnerships for Google, told CRN.
“As part of that carve-out funding, we made sure that we have various different incentives, which are around presales funding, solution development, AI POCs, etc., that will be carved out for specific partners that have made a bet on Google’s AI platform,” Khan said.
From its FDE-focused Gemini Enterprise Transformation partner program to co-selling alongside Google’s own FDE teams—Google Cloud is no longer seeking partners that can provide AI proofs of concept, but those that can drive AI business transformation at scale for enterprise clients.
66degrees CEO: 'Google Is Opening Itself Up'
One solution provider Google Cloud is betting on to drive FDE results and Google AI solutions to enterprise clients is 66degrees.
“Google is opening itself up by having this amazing FDE strategy with their partners that is a new business strategy for their technology,” said 66degrees CEO Ben Kessler.
“There’s a different suite of C-levels that Google is getting into, which is very exciting. We’re solving real business problems that expand gross margin,” Kessler said. “So there needs to be a different type of partner over the long term who can actually manage these fleets of agents.”
Currently, about 20 percent of Chicago-based 66degrees’ workforce is comprised of FDEs.
“We’ve turned it into agent fleets that are running in production for Google Cloud customers that take legacy workflows and business processes and turn them into AI workflows,” said Kessler. “Google’s FDE strategy is: Let the SIs and AI-native partners focus on what they’re really good at.”
Google FDEs Team With Partner FDEs; Google Will Also ‘Shadow’ Them
Google’s Khan said there are two major parts of Google Cloud’s FDE strategy.
This includes teaming Google’s own FDEs with partners to help customers solve technical challenges and deploy Google AI more rapidly.
“We are deploying partners certified people that have successfully done implementation of Gemini within a customer side-by-side in other enterprise accounts where we are short on people. We are deploying those partners with us to come in and help,” she said.
“We’re also providing partners with forward-deployed engineers who can shadow with them,” Khan explained. “So for several different partners, we have actually given them dedicated FDEs that are helping them go into different projects on the enterprise and customer side and help them do the implementation and deployment.”
Google is offering deployment and usage incentives for partners that help drive AI services.
Google is also providing new ways for customers to deploy partners’ own AI agents in the Gemini Enterprise platform.
$750 Million Funding ‘Strictly’ For Partners; Incentives And ‘Free’ Training
The Mountain View, Calif.-based technology giant is investing $750 million into training, enabling and incentivizing channel partners to build and scale their own FDE practice.
In return, Google wants partners to establish sales and FDE capacity as well as obtain AI certifications.
“We will provide partners the Google [FDE] training courses for a certain number of people. It’s going to be free, meaning we’re not charging you for those courses,” she said.
Google partners can receive this top-notch free training in-person or remotely.
“We are really investing back in those partners that are building those FDE capabilities, in addition to getting additional AI certifications and building go-to-market around Google’s agentic AI platform,” Khan said.
To receive Google training and resources, partners need to enroll in the Gemini Enterprise Transformation (GET) program.
Gemini Enterprise Transformation (GET) Program For FDE
This year, Google Cloud launched its GET program to help large customers transition from basic AI pilots to scaled, production-ready agentic AI operations.
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.
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.
66degrees CEO: Turning The ‘Google AI Stack Into Business Outcomes’
Google AI all-star partner 66degrees is leaning into the GET program to drive more sales and AI customer wins.
“We are really able to now turn that Google AI stack into business outcomes,” said 66degrees CEO Kessler. “So we’re selling outside the CIO suite, and we cover the full stack.”
Kessler said to turn AI POCs into production “you can’t just set it and forget it.”
“So many customers get stuck in a POC trap,” he said. “We have people that are focused on very specific domains—meaning very specific business verticals and very specific business functions—that allow customers to build those solutions and move them from POC into production.’”
66degrees builds AI into the company’s data estate and cloud environment, which helps customers reimagine business processes and achieve business outcomes.
Google FDE Exec Says Its About ‘Flipping The AI Conversation’
Google’s FDE charge is focused on “flipping the AI conversation” for enterprises, Khan explained.
“What Google is trying to do in the market is this whole notion of: Don’t have AI projects, have business process reimagination,” she said.
Khan said it’s about carefully reviewing a customer’s business process, figuring out the best way to optimize the process, then bringing in the correct AI platform, model, tools or technology to transform the client’s business process.
“So don’t think about an AI project. Think about business process and how you change it, and then you bring the technology,” she said.
Google’s FDE ‘Goal’ With Partners
Khan said Google Cloud needs partners to get its AI platforms and solutions adopted and scaled.
“We’re not a services company. We are a technology platform,” she said.
“Our goal is we want to meet our customer in the AI journey where they are, and we want to make sure that we use and leverage our partner ecosystem and partners like 66degrees, which have not only just AI stack expertise within Google, but also full-stack expertise,” Khan said.
Once a customer finishes with a specific AI use case and realizes it needs to get its data estate ready for governance and cybersecurity, “the partner can go in with precision and execute on that long-term road map while giving ROI to a customer in a few weeks’ time frame.”
‘We Have To Totally Reimagine Our Workforce’
66degrees, for its part, is focusing heavily on Google’s GET program and training its teams to become FDEs.
This includes building its own proprietary FDE University where 66degrees employees get trained to become AI full-stack FDEs, which is then followed by sending them through Google’s own FDE training.
“So we have our own proprietary training that really focuses on our platform, on business expertise, and then Google is investing alongside us to bring our people through and actually train them deeply on the Google platform,” Kessler said.
Kessler said IT and business transformation services have changed over the past several years, with FDEs being critical in today’s AI market.
“What worked for 66degrees three or four years ago doesn’t work anymore. We have to totally reimagine our workforce,” Kessler said. “That doesn’t mean there’s less opportunities. There’s actually more opportunity. … We’re excited about Google and our FDE future together because it’s what our customers are demanding.”