So this was my first Google Cloud Next… Given how much we are all engulfed by the world of Artificial Intelligence, it made total sense for me to dive into that beyond just using it and GCN 2026 seemed like the perfect place to start.

And GCN was truly a rabbit-hole. The deeper I went, the more fascinating it got.

Right out of the gate what I liked about GCN was how hands-on it was. Every conference session was a live / active demo. Almost every second booth had a active / working demo. Was very helpful as the world of AI development / Agentic AI / AI Agents is relatively new for me.

Not just in the sessions/booths, but generally – the theme was ‘build that thing‘ (as you can see in the photo of the entry corridor)…

Firstly, it was very well planned. In a relatively small space in the Mandalay Bay Convention Centre, they had managed to fit in A LOT.

I spent much less time in Conference Sessions and much more time at the booths / showcases, just taking in the workflows, building Agents (very badly I must add – I’m quite bad at it as of now 😭). A lot of it was in the Google Cloud Showcase

Anyway, here’s what was interesting on the showfloor…

AGENTIC SHOWCASES
The 4 best showcases for me were the AI for 360 deg Product & Visual Brand Development, Multi-Agent AI System for Fashion Retail Advertising. AI for Character Design and an Instant Shoot & Sketch Agent.

A} AI for 360 deg Product & Visual Brand Design Agent by Mars Chocolates

In this, the user creates their own flavour of chocolates – either Skittles, M&Ms or Snickers. Based on the product and the properties, the Agent then creates an advertising visual imaging campaign for the product.

Check out the video of the same… (sped up for brevity)

It created an Marketing Analysis document, the wrapper design, the vertical poster / ad design & what the key / representative graphic image of the product could be.

B} Multi-Agent AI System for Fashion Retail Advertising Advertising

I tried using it, and it seemed quite good, though now knowing anything about Fashion didn’t help with how well i could use it. Structurally though, it looked really robust…

C} AI for Character Design

Here, you got your photo taken, chose your characteristics and Nano Banana and Veo created the character image and a short animation…

Here’s what I made of myself… 😁

That was funnn!!!

D} Shoot & Sketch Agent

An Agent takes a mug-shot, generates a bunch of image options of you in a few locations around Las Vegas, and then instructs a robotic arm it commandeers to rapidly sketch out the image you choose. While there are other similar workflows that do this, what was special was how quickly it generated the image and executed the sketch. Impressive.

Rather quick, as you can see…

Other than these 4 above, these were some interesting show-floor pieces…

Claude – They unveiled their Claude Design platform and had the ability for people to get their hands dirty in it. It is absolutely kick-ass…

Cloud Gaming – absolutely seamless car racing game run entirely on the cloud. Incredibly smooth.

Kubernetes (K8) optimising workflows – There were a lot of companies working on optimising Kubernetes workloads for cloud workflows, including Video Gaming. Kubernetes (abbreviated as K8s) is an open-source platform (originally developed by Google) designed to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerised applications. K8 serves as a container orchestration system that works across multiple servers, ensuring that apps run reliably, efficiently, and with minimal manual intervention.

The AI Agent Lab was much fun… You actually got to understand, learn and build an AI Agent. For those who were proficient, you could build a MAS (Multi Agent System).

The AI Design Workshop – also quite interesting – focused on all kinds of AI-enabled design. From Furniture Design to Graphic Design and everything in between…

Almost ALL the Conference Sessions were packed… and very hands-on…

In most cases – standing-room only if you didn’t get there ahead of time…

All-in-All, Google Cloud Next was highly engaging, and will very much be on my radar to attend going forward.

After all, they also have a puppy-play area where visitors can actually play with puppies… I stopped by in the afternoon when all the puppies were down for their post-lunch nap!!! 🥰🐶🥰

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