84% of Financial Firms Bet Big on Cloud, GCP 28% Growth & London Breakfast with AWS Leaders
Hi, it's Roman from Partner Insight newsletter, where I deconstruct winning Cloud GTM strategies and the latest trends in cloud marketplaces.
This week, we're exploring Google Cloud's impressive 28% growth, their strategic bets on AI, and updates on cloud commits from the past quarter. We’ll also look at the financial industry's 2025 transformation playbook where 84% are investing heavily in cloud and 72% in GenAI - creating marketplace opportunities.
Before we dive in, I'm thrilled to invite you to our exclusive breakfast in London on Wednesday with AWS Marketplace leaders. If you're heading to the AWS London Summit this week and want to start your day with strategic insights that will give you an edge, this is your opportunity.
Special Cloud GTM Leaders Breakfast in London
Less than 36 hours left to join Lewis Howarth, Worldwide Leader of AWS Marketplace Scale Adoption and marketplace legend Phil Soane at our exclusive breakfast in London on the morning of the AWS London Summit (April 30th).
With several companies now reporting $1B+ per year in sales on AWS marketplace and major marketplace evolution coming May 1st, the timing couldn't be more critical.
Few leaders understand the AWS Marketplace scale better than Lewis Howarth, who for over a decade has been at the forefront of procurement transformation at AWS. As Worldwide Leader of AWS Marketplace Scale Adoption, his insights are essential for both ISVs and partners navigating the rapidly growing cloud GTM.
Phil Soane, Principal AWS Marketplace Development Manager International Expansion, brings 5+ years of experience helping ISVs scale across EMEA and globally via AWS Marketplace. Phil and the international expansion team leverage their experience to transform complex international requirements into clear pathways for success.
Phil recently shared that the most successful ISVs are now treating cloud marketplaces as a core and recognized route to market — and, critically, mirroring their core business operations within marketplaces.
The marketplace momentum is undeniable:
CrowdStrike and Splunk both now drive $1 billion+ annually via AWS Marketplace
Presidio just became the first partner to join exclusive billion-dollar club (in total AWS sales)
Channel partner influence on marketplace sales is rapidly accelerating
Strategic timing:
On May 1st—just one day after our breakfast—AWS is implementing major marketplace policy changes that expand their catalog to include all SaaS products regardless of deployment location.
This marks a significant evolution in AWS's marketplace approach. The "Deployed on AWS" badge will create new differentiation opportunities too.
Join us to learn first-hand insights on AWS's marketplace strategy straight from leadership
Wednesday, April 30, 7:45-9:00 AM (perfect timing before the AWS summit)
Where: ExCeL London (2 minutes from venue)
Breakfast, in-depth insights and great networking are guaranteed.
This curated morning gathering brings together senior cloud alliance leaders to cut through the noise and focus on what actually matters in AWS Marketplace strategy today.
See you on Wednesday morning!
P.S. Thank you to our partner Suger for supporting this event
Suger.io helps B2B software companies unlock revenue through cloud marketplaces. From listing to transaction to co-selling, Suger makes it simple to sell on AWS, Azure, and GCP.
Suger's platform automates the heavy lifting of marketplace operations so your team can close deals faster, reduce friction in procurement, and tap into the massive budgets already committed to the cloud.
Google Cloud Impressive 28% Growth & Strategic Bet on AI Agents
Google Cloud revenue reached $12.3B in Q1 2025 with 28% growth. In the face of market volatility, GCP's strong quarter and commitment to its $75B infrastructure investment sends a powerful signal to the entire cloud ecosystem. Here's what alliance leaders need to know.
Google Cloud continues its impressive growth trajectory, with Q1 revenues jumping 28% YoY to $12.3 billion.
This is "reflecting growth in GCP across core and AI products at a rate that was much higher than Cloud's overall revenue growth rate," according to CFO Anat Ashkenazi.
Partners remain central to Google's cloud strategy
At Cloud Next, over 500 companies showcased business results achieved through Google partnerships.
Sundar Pichai, CEO, highlighted how Google's infrastructure enables them to "deliver the best value for AI leaders, like Anyscale and Contextual AI, as well as global brands like Verizon."
Google is positioning itself as the definitive leader in the "new era of AI Agents, which Pichai called "a big opportunity."
Their Agent Development Kit provides an open-source framework for building sophisticated AI agents, while Agent Designer offers a low-code tool for automating tasks across enterprise applications.
With Google Agentspace, employees at major global companies like KPMG can find and synthesize information, converse with AI agents, and take action within their enterprise applications.
This quarter Google also rolled out Gemini 2.5, its "most intelligent AI model, which is achieving breakthroughs in performance, and ... an extraordinary foundation for our future innovation." - CEO.
Despite market uncertainties, Google remains steadfast in its $75B infrastructure build-out for 2025.
With Q1 CAPEX reaching $17 billion, they're scaling their technical infrastructure to meet exploding AI demand. Google Cloud executives highlighted they're in a "tight demand/supply environment" where customer demand exceeds capacity – a bullish indicator for continued growth.
As Ashkenazi noted, "we exited the year in Cloud specifically with more customer demand than we had capacity. And that was the case this quarter as well."
This robust earnings report, particularly during heightened market uncertainty, reveals a few critical insights for alliance leaders:
Google's aggressive investment in AI agent capabilities offers alliance leaders a powerful platform for customer conversations: focus on immediate business process transformation through AI agents, rather than infrastructure modernization only.
The recently launched AI Agent Marketplace is set to create a direct monetization path for partners within Google Cloud's ecosystem.
"Capacity crunch" creates a leverage for partners who can help customers navigate cloud and AI procurement, deployment and optimization.
As alliance leaders build their strategies, are you positioning your offerings to capitalize on the AI agent evolution that Google is clearly betting on?
Cloud Commitments: Temporary Plateau
While Google Cloud revenue continues to grow at an impressive rate (28% YoY), its customer cloud commitments backlog experienced a slight $0.8B slide this quarter to $92.4B. This minor contraction highlights an important reality: growing both revenue and commitment backlogs simultaneously is challenging even for hyperscalers.
This temporary plateau isn't necessarily concerning. Historical patterns show commitment growth isn't linear quarter-over-quarter. We'll track this metric closely in coming quarters to distinguish between normal fluctuation and any potential trend.
84% Invest Heavily in Cloud, 72% in GenAI: Financial Industry's 2025 Transformation Playbook & Partner Opportunities
Cloud, AI, and data strategy are reshaping the financial industry in 2025, offering a compelling snapshot of continuous digital transformation in one of the world's largest economic sectors.
Broadridge's 2025 Digital Transformation study of 500+ financial services leaders reveals insights that are relevant for many cloud GTM and partnership leaders. As financial firms accelerate their technology investments, their priorities and challenges create ripple effects throughout the tech ecosystem.
Let's explore what's happening and why it matters:
“Cloud is king, with 86% of firms integrating it into their processes, and 84% making moderate to large investments this year, consistent with last year’s study. This dominance underscores the industry’s recognition of the cloud as the backbone of scalability, operational efficiency, and agility.” - highlights the research, setting the stage for continued cloud platform growth in the sector.
Cloud is followed by cybersecurity, because “with the increasing sophistication of cyberthreats, firms have also maintained their focus on cybersecurity technologies…. 87% reporting that they plan to make moderate to large investments in cybersecurity this year.”
AI adoption is surging in the sector, with 72% of firms making moderate to large investments in GenAI —up from just 40% last year.
The motivation breakdown is particularly interesting: cost reduction (29%) edges out customer experience (28%), suggesting companies are trying to balance efficiency with innovation rather than simply cutting costs. Employee experience (19%) as the third priority indicates organizations are focusing on internal transformation alongside external value.
The ROI timeline expectations show a maturing approach to AI
14% already seeing benefits (likely with targeted, well-defined use cases), 21% expecting returns within 6 months. 33% anticipate payback in 1-2 years and another nearly third (32%) is expecting it in 3+ years. This pragmatic distribution suggests we've moved beyond hype to strategic implementation with realistic timelines.
Data strategy emerges as the critical X-factor. As one executive candidly stated:
"It all comes back to the data. Any model, any capability you're building, if the data is not right...it's not going to be as impactful."
This highlights why data management capabilities are becoming essential for digital transformation and using more advanced cloud and AI offerings.
With 84% of financial firms making substantial investments in cloud and 72% in GenAI, the industry's shift to buy technology via cloud marketplaces is undeniable. This trend is already producing remarkable results: Microsoft UK reported last year a staggering 308% YoY growth in financial services marketplace sales.
This also creates massive partner opportunities to help financial service industry navigate the complex intersection of cloud, cybersecurity, AI and data integration, while selling to them via marketplaces.
I explained how to use segment-first strategy to sell on marketplaces here.
How is your organization positioned to capture this growing market opportunity?
P.S. If you find these insights valuable, please share this newsletter with your network - it’s free.