What's New at Google Cloud with CMO Alison Wagonfeld

Hey SaaStr, we have a terrific friend and guest of ours today, Allison Wagenfeld, who is CMO of Google Cloud. And I've been fortunate enough, and we've been fortunate enough to know her probably since the beginning of SaaStr. She's been a, a, a leading technology executive for many years. When did you join Google, Allison?

I joined Google in May 2016.

Wow. It seems like yesterday, but now that's a long time in cloud time. I think Google Cloud might, you know, it's funny, I bet Google Cloud was like a 30th the size it is today given the compounding nature in 2016, don't you think?

It was pretty small at the time.

Yeah.

And it's a—

now you look at these charts, it's like crazy. Yeah. And before that she was at Emergence Capital, which invested in my last— so really one of the, someone that has perspective on all sides of startup, cloud, SaaS, and scale. So thank you for joining us today. It's great to have you.

It's great to be here with you, Jason. We definitely go back a long way. I remember some of the early SaaStr events from the, I don't know, 2013, 2014. So it's exciting.

Yeah, a long 10 years. So I wanted to have a little fun with that and I, and I wanna spend a, a, a bunch of the time we have with it, uh, talking about real AI, which I think is interesting. But, but before we get there, you're, you've got a huge portfolio, which I'm curious about. You're CMO of Google Cloud. So, What does that mean? What do you manage? What do you have your team doing? And the world's changing again, right? In a big way for the first time since mobile. So what are your top priorities as CMO for the next 12 to 15 months?

So as you mentioned, I joined here in 2016 to be effectively the first CMO of Google Cloud. And at the time we were small, you know, less than a billion or $1 or $2 billion of revenue. We just crossed over a $30 billion revenue run rate. So it's been a wild—

30x.

Growth experience. And I think now we're the 4th or 5th largest enterprise company in the world, which is kind of amazing when just having some perspective on that. So in terms of my portfolio, so I'm responsible for Google Workspace as well as Google Cloud Platform that we often refer to as Google Cloud. So those are really selling all the way from SMBs, especially with Workspace. Lots of probably the companies listening, hopefully our Workspace customers. Probably all of us all. All the way through to— yeah, that's awesome. We love it that way. All the way through to some of the largest enterprises in the world using Google Cloud. So, in terms of running the marketing team, so we have a lot of the classic functions of thinking about brand marketing, product marketing, partner marketing, really large demand gen teams. That's certainly a big part of everything that we do. And then regional teams. So, the team is global, so North America, Lat— TAM, Europe, Middle East and Africa, as well as Japan and Asia Pacific. So really broad. And then of course, the strategy and ops team to help ensure that everything is working, which is particularly important this time of year because we're deep in planning. And in terms of how we think about our goals, we look at it generally in 5 pillars that refer to as our priority pillars. One is around people and culture and ensuring that we really have the right talent on our team and that everyone's growing. Second is what we talk about is lifting mindshare, really shifting perception in the market. It's no surprise that, you know, we've been number 3, but growing number 3 player in the cloud.

Growing share.

Growing share, growing revenues. And so, but shifting perception is important. Then we think about it in terms of driving demand for our sales team. Like many of SaaS companies, demand gen, a really important part of the equation. And so, We take targets with our sales partners. And then fourth is around driving revenue. So what we refer to a lot of is untouched revenue, all of the marketing to get people to our websites to be able to procure, whether doing trials for on the Google Cloud side or whether doing trials or growing for Workspace. So all of those revenue. And then our fifth pillar is around efficiency and optimization and how do we get better every year in terms of reducing costs in terms of cost per lead or just generally what does it mean to become a more efficient, scaled operation? So that's how we think about it.

Hey, let me ask you, I was, I hadn't thought about talking too much about workplace, but it's interesting to me from a marketer's perspective, how do you think about the market? Because here's what I see, like I'm living in a very tech-centric, you know, I see, I, I can't think of a single startup I work with that works on the Microsoft stack there.

Okay.

I'm not saying in the real world it's true, but I would think from a go-to-market marketing position and product marketing messaging, that might be very different than how you try to push Google Cloud where you have this even more dynamic market. How do you think about the Workplace versus Cloud? How do you think about the whole— maybe I'm wrong in terms of market share, but I feel like they'd be very different strategies.

Yeah. So for Google Workspace, which some people think of as way back when as Google Apps for Work. And then we had a short stint as G Suite. And then we ultimately—

I still like G Suite, but OK, keep going.

I still liked it. Most people didn't know that the G was for Google. So when we invested in really expanding, we put a lot of investment in terms of building out Google Meet as well as all of the rest of Workspace. We rebranded it and have really expanded. Invested in it. And so that we compete with certainly Microsoft in a big way with the bigger the company, the more we compete with Microsoft and the smaller the company, the less, because it's so easy to just procure and get up and using, I mean, all of like the web native capabilities of Workspace are so much better than what people experience with Microsoft. So that's been a whole big part of our marketing is focusing on that and the The biggest, most interesting part is we recently announced Duet AI, which is our AI assistant built into Workspace. So hopefully you're using it. If you're not, let's make sure that you start using it. It's been really a game changer for companies that are using it because it works with your corpus of material and it knows what you're thinking about. It summarizes, it suggests, it's really adding efficiency. So marketing with Duet AI with Workspace has been awesome because it's a whole way to get into new accounts and everything there. Google Cloud Platform, very different set, you know, also compete with Microsoft, but AWS has been certainly the biggest competitor in that market for a while. What we're seeing now with everything we're doing around generative AI and Google Cloud Platform, it's an opportunity now to grab share from AWS in particular. We're seeing many more startups now working with Google Cloud with access to our own models, the LLMs that we have with— we have products like Vertex and a model garden that people are using. In fact, right now, 70% of the GenAI startups are all using Google Cloud, of the biggest GenAI unicorns. So we're seeing a real big shift to Google Cloud in the startup universe, which is awesome.

And why— I should know that there's two things I should know that I don't know. Well, there's 1,000 things. Why is that? Why is that 70% statistic true? What's the real reason that that share is so high?

So there's a couple of things. One is around the infrastructure. Our infrastructure is really optimized for AI. We build our own chips. We also work with NVIDIA. So really strong AI-optimized infrastructure because we've been using AI at Google for well over a decade. So we've been optimizing this all along for our own users, for our own— whether we use like, you know, photo discovery or on YouTube, AI and ads everywhere. So that's one. Second is Vertex is a really powerful platform where you can discover models, and Google also has its own models, or you can use open source models or other company models. So we're set up where you don't have only one model to choose from, and we've built in all the security and the controls and the technology to be able to scale with that. And then on top of it, we're also introducing Duet AI on the Google Cloud side to help you with coding and the assistance and all the things. Along those ways. So the way GenAI has just been built into the whole stack, top to bottom, natively, and that we own and manage a lot of those pieces of it, has been really valuable. So companies from the very beginning when we announced, like companies like Replit or Anthropic and everything, are all working with Google Cloud, been really happy with it. And then that translates into lots more startups.

Yeah. And related to that, and I, I obviously you have your bias, but in a good way for this question. Why has AWS lost share?

So they have not been investing in AI in the same way that Google has for such a long time.

So that's a beat you think that they've missed?

So I think that given that so many of the startups now and companies, even scaling companies like your whole world of SaaS, or GenAI is such an important part of the growth trajectory of these companies that you would want to work with the companies that are strongest in GenAI, and that's where Google really shines. And companies tend to work less with Microsoft. They might be working with OpenAI, which obviously is, you know, powerful, and ChatGPT, really powerful as well. But that's less of a Microsoft opportunity. It's really more of an OpenAI. So if you're looking for a full stack, then it's valuable. And then second is we've put out a lot of really good programs lately on learning and cohorts, and we have credits, AI startup credits. So we've been really out there quickly in terms of the training and development with Google Cloud, which I think has helped pull in a lot more to us. So, and I'm also, I just think in general, Google Cloud is much more mature than it was a couple of years ago. And we've just caught up in all of these areas. And then there's areas that we really shine.

And how do you, you talk a lot about AI-native companies, right? But as long-term SaaS folks, you and I are also seeing every single classic B2B workflow company adding some sort of AI to that, which they need to power, right? So from a market and marketing perspective, how are you thinking about those two different segments in terms of attracting them and servicing them?

I think in many ways that my job has never been more interesting because we get to market AI, but we also are users of it ourselves. And so rarely does that get to interact, um, and intersect so much. So we've seen it in many different ways. So one end functionally, like, so take a marketer who's now using GenAI. They're using it in things like Do-It-AI and Workspace to help write, define, create images, create briefs, create new campaigns, everything like that. Yeah. And also as a marketer using tools like Vertex that allow us to create a marketing studio. So it trains on all of our old creative, what was the most successful? Okay, based on that learning in connection with our models, let's show a new piece of creative. Let's kind of now, how will that perform? Or how do we adapt that to make it more successful going forward? So we have companies like Carrefour, a big retailer, supermarket retailer in Europe that created an entire marketing studio in 6 weeks using Vertex. And then so we've been using it ourselves. So there's functional needs like sales. You certainly seeing lots of opportunities for writing kind of sales emails, everything like that, and customer support. So lots there. And then we're seeing in different industry segments. So for retail, for example, of image generation, doing ads in retail, being able to have the conversational elements. I mean, those aspects, almost every company is creating conversational interfaces with their customers. For sure. And so they're either building it themselves.

I'm worried there's almost too many, but I'm with you.

I'm with you. Yes, exactly. And then the more sophisticated companies are building them themselves using products like Vertex because it's not that hard to build a conversational interface with your own data. Or there's a whole set of new companies now that are being built effectively on top of our technology that are more customers would take even in the marketing function. Companies like Jasper are now, or Typeface, are building on top of Google Cloud and then are creating just a marketing interface for people that might not have the technology in-house to build their own. But then they can have essentially targeted companies like, you know, what Emergence always called the industry cloud companies or essentially the functional cloud companies. So we're seeing all of those in AI explode, which is super exciting.

So it's an interesting case study. I mean, Jasper, I mean, we use Jasper ourselves, right? What's the specific benefit they're getting from Google Cloud there? Like, why did they standardize there, right? I think probably people that listen or watch this will try or, or be Jasper customers too.

Yeah. So, so Jasper uses Vertex on Google Cloud and then accesses our large language models and then trains with marketing-specific data and large language models.

Yes.

So that when customers wanna upload their own campaign and modify it using Jasper, it's probably what you're doing is modifying it or writing blog posts or customizing social copy. They have these great language models to suggest alternative, what's best. So that works if you want to train on a broad model for all marketing. If you want to just train for your company, if you are a large company that has a ton of your own marketing elements, then you might create your own custom models working with the same base. But then you're training, you have way more training data in-house. You probably don't have enough training data in-house that you would want, nor the money or the engineers probably to create your own. And so we see that playing out in many different industries.

Just, I wanna come back to the topic we were just talking about, but outta curiosity, do you think, as you think about this, do you think AI can replace marketers?

No, I don't think that. I, I think—

Me neither.

I think AI can replace the parts of marketing that people don't love doing.

Or unwilling to do.

Or unwilling to do. Like we created this really cool asset called the Executive Guide to GenAI. AI, and it has 10 steps, really, you know, things, this is what you should do and this is how you should measure your success. That was interesting. We interviewed a whole bunch of customers. We interviewed a whole bunch of sales execs, created this. Less interesting to create the blog post, the web landing page, the email elements, the BDR, the call scripts for the people calling out. So to be able to create a really interesting asset with all of that research, but then use AI to create all these derivations of it. That's a really good use of AI, but the AI wouldn't have been able to create this entire asset about these 10 different steps with all the—

I see. But all the derivatives.

Yeah. So it's basically the derivative elements is a great use of AI. The other ones are like image generation. I mean, you could call an agency and take, you know, photos of your products in 20 different locations so that your ads can be relevant. Or you can use Imagen to just keep swapping out the backgrounds. Here's this in snow. Here's this in on the beach. And like, not a good use of time and money to travel around the world. Really good use of AI.

For sure. To go back just for a second to when we talked about Jasper and others, there were one that I, I found interesting was you just announced a big partnership to add in some fashion AI enhanced their platform. And that's probably the type of thing almost anyone watching or listening, this is thinking about or learning from. So what do they, what do you guys do together and what's behind that announcement?

Yeah, so the announcement we made yesterday was with Spotify. They are working with Google Cloud to improve the searchability of auto to be able to go so that any user can try to create custom audio for their podcast for example, and they are basically looking at AI and all of the different ways from everything from marketing for themselves, but a lot for their user experience to be able to improve searchability is one of their biggest use cases. I mean, that's always the biggest challenge for, not the, their biggest challenge, but a challenge is for people to find what they're looking for, whether it's on a website or in an app and being able to use language models to predict what someone's looking for, suggest it to them, and then maybe even suggest other opportunities is a great use of generative AI.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, search is one of the existential challenges of the internet, right? I mean, going to the roots of Google and Spotify is interesting because if you think of a company that has been using some form of AI since day one, right? It's, it's that this is the differentiation, right? Okay. Well, there's a bunch of stuff we could talk about, but I don't want to run out of time. This is What's New At. What are some key things coming up with Google Cloud or that you're working on that you think would be most important or resonant with the SaaS community?

Yeah, so what we talked about, Do It AI, we've talked about Vertex. I think the SaaS community would love some of the new training programs that we put out there. So last June we announced a cohort training program for AI startups across Google and Google Cloud. We're doing another program starting in January. So if people go to cloud.google.com/startups, you can basically—

cloud.google.com/startups. And it's live or it's recorded? How do the cohorts work?

So there's a new cohort that's starting on January 16th, running through February 22nd. And it's like a huge AI learning program. So I think you could just type in Google Cloud Startups and you'll be able to find that. We also have credits, so we give up to $350,000 of credits to AI startups. So that's another area that companies, your listeners, should be looking for and applying for those different types of credits. So highly recommend. And as part of that program, you also get access to some of our engineers to make sure that you're setting everything up properly. So there's one-on-one consulting. So that's also been really powerful for companies to be able to just get a really fast start. And understand what they can do with Google Cloud AI. So that would be another. Third is we just announced our Cloud Next event in Vegas. Vegas. Yeah, moving to Vegas.

Vegas. We'll chat about that. We'll share some learnings. Okay, good. Vegas, when it's in April or something like that?

April 9th through 11th. Okay. In Vegas. We are doubling the size this year and lots of opportunities for developers. We had this startup lounge last year for those of you. Yes. Who went, which was wildly successful. So we're making that much bigger and increasing certifications, everything. I just actually saw a news article this morning that the cloud certifications— cloud-certified developers are the highest-paid developers from certifi— um, after certification. So we're going to be— make sure that we really increase the training and development of Google Cloud engineers, which will help make it easier to hire and everything like that for all of your listeners. But so coming to Cloud Next in April, sign up now. We actually have some early bird promotions that we just announced in terms of getting tickets cheaper.

Let's do that. Yes. Always get the early bird tickets.

Yes.

I hear you. We'll try to do a SaaStr dinner or something around it too for folks that are there.

Oh, that would be great.

That's cool. Yes, that's cool.

Vegas. So those are the things that I would say is just get involved right now. And then I guess the last thing I would say is we have a marketplace. Within Google Cloud where we've really grown over the last couple of years. So for your companies that are running on Google Cloud, hopefully many, if they want to list their companies on our marketplace, then other customers can find and discover and grow from those. And so we find those to be really successful.

Well, let's maybe let's end there because it's an— that's an interesting topic. What are the— if you do want to part— if you are running on the platform and you want to partner more and there's a marketplace, What are the hacks or what's the way to, to be a great partner? How do you be a great partner?

So if you basically offer something exceptional using Google Cloud technology, we will promote you. So if you're doing something innovative or different, or if you're running at a really large scale, or if you want to show up at a place like Cloud Next, you actually can sign up to be a sponsoring partner at Cloud Next. And actually have your own space in your own booth. And then we will come film you and promote you and basically help draw attention to what you're offering. So we definitely lean in with the, you know, many companies are multi-cloud, but the ones that really choose to do innovative work with Google Cloud, we will lean in and promote. And, you know, companies like Typeface, we created a whole video about them and we'll help push that out.

So typefaces, I mean, I mean, they're all startups, but it's up here. Is there an example of someone that, that, that, that you know of that maybe has a little bit less brand equity or maybe they don't, that's broken out leveraging, leveraging you guys as a platform, the marketplace and others?

So, I mean, a whole bunch of companies that we've highlighted. I don't know too much that you would know these, and these are all around the world. Like, yes. Connected Stories, CoRover, Elemental Cognition, ElevenLabs, Fiddlr. Fireworks.ai, Promptly, Quora. Quora's been around for a while. Samaya AI, Synthesised, Rytr. So these are all different companies that have developed with us, and then we will put them in our blogs, for example, and then we will promote. So we— companies that sign up for these training programs and these cohorts, that's where we tend to learn a lot about a lot of the newer companies.

And then I see. So that is valuable for top of funnel relationship building too, right?

Yes. Exactly. So you get money, you build, you scale, and we help promote you. So it works well for everybody. Yeah. Cool.

That's a great insight. All right, Alison, this was so great. Is there anything else that we, we missed from the whole Google Cloud empire we should chat about today, or did we hit it all?

I think we hit it all. Hopefully everybody signs up, starts using the technology. Definitely sign up for Duet AI with Workspace. Now, if you're already a user, you can actually just in the console Upgrade to Do It AI.

Do It AI, get your $350,000 of free, of free credits, right? And next in April in Las Vegas.

Yes. And share your stories with us so that we can help promote them and help promote the companies that are working on Google Cloud.

Cool. Thanks for all the time, Allison.

Great. Great to talk with you, Jason.