Google's AI Agent Marketplace: 1000s of Agents, $50B Opportunity
Hi, it's Roman Kirsanov from Partner Insight newsletter, where I deconstruct winning Cloud GTM strategies and the latest trends in cloud marketplaces.
This week, we're exploring three major shifts reshaping Cloud GTM strategies. Google Cloud's Rayn Veerubhotla reveals why AI agents represent a $50B opportunity and how their AI Agent Marketplace is set to transform software distribution. We'll examine how and why SIs (system integrators) are packaging decades of IP into scalable AI agents. Plus, we'll break down how marketplace procurement helps Freshworks win competitive deals against legacy giants.
But before we dive in, if you find these insights valuable, please subscribe or share this newsletter with your network—it's free and helps us reach more partnership leaders navigating these transformative trends.
Google's AI Agent Marketplace: 1000s of Agents, $50B Opportunity
Rayn Veerubhotla, Managing Director of Partner Engineering at Google Cloud, revealed why agentic AI will soon be a $50B market and radically accelerate its cloud marketplace. The early impact is already striking— agents in one enterprise example are delivering a 97% cost reduction.
Rayn Veerubhotla, MD of Partner Engineering at GCP, shared in our podcast how AI agents are reshaping both software distribution and partnerships models.
AI Agent Marketplace Momentum
Google Cloud launched the industry's first AI Agent Marketplace and 50+ partners have already deployed 1000s of agents on its marketplace, highlighting major momentum.
It's not a coincidence that Google Cloud hosts 90% of Gen AI unicorns—it shows the power of their vertically integrated AI stack from custom TPUs to Gemini models to marketplace and now Agent infrastructure.
GCP partner multiplier is compelling: for every $1 of Google Cloud consumption, there's $7+ in partner opportunity. With agents now enabling outcome-based models, this ratio could expand dramatically. Service partners can also package their IP into scalable, revenue-generating AI agents.
AI Agents already show real impact: One European insurer reduced accounts payable processing costs from €20-30 per transaction to 60 cents - a 97% cost reduction.
The Paradigm Shift for Partners
"The role of CIO is changing... in future, they'll be CHRO for agents," Rayn noted, predicting organizations will soon manage more virtual agents than human employees. For partners, this means evolving from software resellers to orchestrators of agentic workflows.
Real examples are emerging: PwC builds clinical assistant agents for oncologists, HCLTech created manufacturing quality agents. These solutions automate tasks and redesign business processes.
Three monetization models are crystallizing: per-transaction, outcome-based, and hybrid subscription-plus-usage, with marketplace supporting all.
This flexibility enables partners to align pricing with actual business value delivered.
A2A Protocol Is Critical
"Agents are all powerful, but they can be built in myriad ways," Rayn explained. Google's Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol solves the critical interoperability challenge—this opens unprecedented partnership opportunities.
Even Microsoft is now contributing to its open-source development.
The $100M Commitment
Google is backing this transformation with a $100M partner enablement fund, recognizing that "this is a $50B TAM that we see in near future." The focus: ensuring partners have the skills and capacity to deliver on enterprise AI agentic transformations.
The AI Agent Marketplace is set to become how enterprises buy, deploy, and orchestrate their digital workforce.
The question isn't whether this transformation happens, but how quickly leaders position themselves to win in this trend.
The Great Reinvention: How Agentic AI is Forcing Services Giants to Transform
System integrators are in a race to redefine their value, packaging decades of invaluable IP into AI agents. In our conversation, Google Cloud's Rayn Veerubhotla, Managing Director of Partner Engineering, also unpacked the tectonic shifts happening in professional services and revealed how Google's ecosystem is designed to help enterprises manage the coming agent explosion.
The AI Agent Marketplace: An "App Store" Moment for the Enterprise
The true game-changer for deploying agents at scale is the AI Agent Marketplace. Rayn Veerubhotla described it as the central hub where customers can discover, find, and deploy agents from a wide range of providers, including both Google and its vast partner network. This marketplace streamlines procurement and acts as the primary distribution channel for the new agent economy.
To accelerate this journey, Google also offers Agentspace with a suite of its own pre-built agents.
"Agentspace is our effort not only to give you that infrastructure to build agents, but give you some pre-built agents so that you can get started on the agentic journey much faster," Rayn explained.
These include powerful tools like enterprise knowledge search for breaking down data silos and NotebookLM for deep, document-based reasoning.
The AI Journey: From POCs to Production Workflows
Rayn outlined a rapid evolution in the enterprise AI journey.
"If you look at 2023, that's when generative AI became prime time... mostly POCs," he said. "At 2024... some earlier actors moving systems into production scale deployments... As you look to 2025, it's all about agent workflows."
This rapid move from experimentation to production brings a new set of opportunities and challenges. With the expectation that there will be "more agents than physical employees in organizations very soon," the primary obstacles are no longer about just building the tech.
"I see two things as the major obstacles to roll out this agentic workflows at scale," Rayn noted. "First and foremost is security... The second area that is very important is governance."
Organizations need structured frameworks for version control, preventing "rogue agents," and ensuring traditional access controls and compliance are respected in this new, dynamic world.
The Great Services Transformation
The fundamental business model for service partners is changing. Custom development is evolving, coding requirements are shifting, and the way clients consume knowledge is being reinvented. This requires a major pivot.
"The typical opportunity for a services partner is changing," Rayn explained. "One of the ways they have to... get through this is by packaging the IP that they have into agentic workflows, agents that they can monetize."
Major system integrators are already deep into this transformation.
"I've seen every one of the large SIs, Accenture, Deloitte, so on and so forth all following this path," Rayn confirmed. "Already we have seen a lot of our 1000+ agents... came from our large SIs."
This is their effort to turn years of accumulated knowledge into deployable, scalable solutions.
The Breakthrough in Service Scalability
Unlike traditional consulting where growth is limited by human hours, agent-based services offer a paradigm-shifting economic model.
"The services space with agents is infinitely scalable," Rayn stated. "You can scale your agents like almost infinitely." This allows service companies to move from selling time to selling outcomes, packaging their expertise into repeatable, revenue-generating solutions that operate 24/7.
The Agentic AI Opportunity is Here for Everyone
For alliance leaders and partners of all types, the message is clear: this is a foundational shift you cannot afford to ignore.
"It doesn't matter what type of partner you are... there's a lot for you in this," Rayn urged. "Every board, every company is asking this question: how do I reinvent myself in this agentic world?"
The race is on. It's not just about building individual agents—it's about reimagining entire business models around agentic workflows. The platforms and tools are maturing, and the partners who embrace this transformation today will be the leaders who define the enterprise of tomorrow.
Case Study: How Marketplace Makes Switching from Legacy Vendors “An Easy Decision”
Freshworks has proved that smaller SaaS companies can use cloud marketplaces to win deals from legacy players. That's why their partner playbook is worth studying.
Marketplace as a Competitive Edge
Dennis Woodside, Freshworks' CEO, captured the marketplace advantage perfectly, explaining how one of their deal was closed:
"Cybersecurity leader Sophos needed a user-friendly ITSM solution with less complexity and a lower total cost of ownership.
These differentiators, coupled with the ability to procure via AWS Marketplace, made switching from the legacy provider to our uncomplicated solution an easy decision." (Q1'25 call)
Notice the emphasis — marketplace wasn't an afterthought. It was the deal closer against an entrenched incumbent.
This mirrors what I wrote about Salesforce becoming AWS Marketplace's fastest-growing ISV earlier this year.
But here's the twist: Freshworks represents the next wave. Mid-market and smaller software companies are discovering that marketplace procurement can level the playing field against enterprise giants.
From Referral to Resell: The Partner Evolution
18 months ago, when I first analyzed Freshworks' strategy, they were primarily focused on PLG, but partner-led revenue was already growing 37%, ~2X faster than other segments.
Fast forward to today, and they've reinvented their GTM. Not only do they now work much more closely with hyperscalers like AWS, their recently re-launched partner program.
The numbers tell the story: 500+ transacting partners globally, now driving ~30% of revenue (up from 25% last year).
They've moved from simple referral commissions to full reseller models, where partners can control their own pricing and earn more with services.
CEO explained:
"We made a change to the program overall at the request of the vast majority of our partners, where we're moving to something that's much more industry standard where we have -- we basically have a transfer pricing model for our resellers and then they can build services around that.
They can price as they wish. If they want to price on a per seat basis, they can. If they want to add services into that, they can."
It's a recognition that the market is shifting.
Two trends are converging that alliance leaders should track:
1️⃣ Marketplace democratization
Companies like Freshworks are proving that effective marketplace strategies aren't about company size or sector — they're about execution.
When a biz apps software that competes with Salesforce and ServiceNow can use Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace to win competitive deals, it signals that marketplace excellence has become a differentiator across all segments.
2️⃣ Partner-marketplace integration
The most successful vendors are weaving marketplace capabilities into their partner programs, not treating them as separate channels.
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