Enterprises are moving from testing artificial intelligence to using it at scale, marking a broader shift toward enterprise AI transformation. At the same time, there’s a growing focus on modernizing cloud systems and helping people adapt as the technology becomes central to everyday operations.

AI’s potential to apply to almost any existing workflow makes it challenging for organizations to know where to begin. Many companies are beginning their AI journey with internal projects to build familiarity and confidence before applying it to customer-facing solutions, according to Alexis Johnson (pictured, left), director of customer engineering, strategic AI and ISV at Google Cloud.

NTT Data’s Gaurav Goel and Google Cloud’s Alexis Johnson talk with theCUBE about enterprise AI transformation and the value of strategic partnership.

“The challenge with that is that often those internal use cases are the places where it’s the hardest to measure the business value,” Johnson said. “Those are the places where, when we can come and say, ‘Okay, here are the metrics we want to help you measure to ensure that you understand, what does good look like for adopting AI,’ now you get to see a little bit closer to value.”

Johnson and Gaurav Goel (right), senior director of enterprise cloud and cloud transformation at NTT Data Inc., spoke with theCUBE’s Rebecca Knight for the Google Cloud Partner AI Series event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how enterprises are scaling AI adoption through cloud modernization, enterprise AI transformation and the role of strategic partnerships in driving tangible business outcomes. (* Disclosure below.)

How enterprise AI transformation depends on collaboration

Google Cloud and NTT Data recently signed a co-innovation strategic partnership agreement, focused on industry-specific agentic AI and a cloud native modernization philosophy. Working with partners who understand customers’ businesses and end users allows Google Cloud to drive stronger business outcomes, according to Johnson.

“A partner like [NTT Data] is someone who deeply understands Google Cloud, but also deeply understands the industries and customers that they work with as well,” she said. “They’re kind of like the glue and the gel that makes everything fit together.”

NTT Data has referenced being agentic-led with frameworks like Takumi. The Takumi framework helps companies move from ideation to enterprise-wide deployment, according to Goel.

“It brings [a] set of frameworks; processes that helps customers to realize the AI value proposition, to their businesses, to their customers, where the revenue is, where the growth is,” he said.

The partnership with Google Cloud is driving measurable transformation for customers across industries, according to Goel. One example involves a global retailer with 12,000 stores.

“They had a legacy data center. We were able to make them exit their data center, move hundreds of workloads to Google Cloud with our cloud acceleration factory and now we are able to insert agentic AI in their [internet technology service management] models,” Goel said. “They’re able to solve problems like observability [and] how to resolve client tickets faster. All that is happening.”

True co-innovation comes from both teams sharing the same goal, which is the success of the end customer, according to Johnson. Instead of starting strong and tapering off thereafter, collaboration happens throughout the process of the partnership.

“When we are working with a partner like NTT Data … we are together, working through all of the stages of understanding that problem,” she said. “We go through the workshops together, the brainstorming. We are one team operating in concert with that end success in mind.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Google Cloud Partner AI Series event:

(* Disclosure: Google LLC sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Google nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE