Google Cloud’s OpenAI deal signals new phase in the AI race

Google Cloud is adding OpenAI's AI models to the models its customers can use. This shows a change in how businesses may use AI. Instead of having to choose just one AI company's system, businesses can use cloud platforms to work with several different AI models in one place.

The two big technology companies announced their deal two days ago. It means businesses and software developers will have more AI models to choose from through Google Cloud's AI platform for businesses.

Google Cloud users will be able to use both Google's Gemini AI models and OpenAI's models. These will be added to the more than 200 models already available on the platform. The existing choices include Google's own models, models made by other companies, and open models that developers can use.

Google Cloud says this will give customers more freedom when building AI applications and AI agents, which are programs that can carry out tasks. Instead of using only one model, customers can choose different models for different jobs. They can decide based on how much each model costs, what it can do, and how well it works.

Thomas Kurian, the chief executive officer of Google Cloud, said customers can choose the best model for each job. This can help them get better results while spending less money.

The partnership will also let developers and businesses that already build applications on Google Cloud use OpenAI's models and Codex, OpenAI's tool for working with computer code.

Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president and co-founder, said the partnership will give customers more ways to access and use OpenAI's technology in their own systems.

He said the partnership is an important step toward making OpenAI's most powerful models and Codex available on the platforms customers already use to build applications. It gives customers more choice in how they use advanced AI. He added that the two companies will work together to grow the world of AI agents, which can perform tasks for users.

The partnership comes at a time when more businesses are using several AI models for different tasks, instead of depending on just one AI model or one company.

Research by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), working with IBM, found that 81 per cent of organisations use three or more generative AI models. Generative AI is technology that can create things such as text, images, and computer code. The finding shows that businesses are increasingly choosing AI models that fit the specific work they need to do, rather than simply choosing models based on how many things they can do overall.