Google beefs up its UK AI business with Agentspace data residency and more
Google is increasing its investment in AI in the U.K. with plans to expand its data residency in the country. The CEOs of Google DeepMind and Google Cloud shared details of the company's strategy during an event in London. They were joined by customers BT and WPP to discuss the future of Google's AI business in the U.K. This move reflects Google's commitment to growing its AI capabilities in the region. The company aims to strengthen its presence in the U.K. and advance its AI technologies.
Google's AI Business Expansion in the U.K.
Google is doubling down on building out its AI business in the U.K. On Monday morning in London, the CEO of Google DeepMind Demis Hassabis and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian appeared alongside customers BT and WPP to spell out some of its plans. The company said it would expand UK data residency to include Agentspace so that AI agents for enterprises built on Google infrastructure can be hosted locally — a key detail for organizations that are wary of hosting data outside of their own purview.
Alongside this, Google is introducing more financial incentives for AI startups to work with Google awarding those joining its new UK accelerator up to £280,000 in Google Cloud credits; plus expanded AI skills training. Additionally, Google used the event at its DeepMind offices to announce that Chirp 3, the company’s audio generation model that was developed there, would be added to its Vertex AI developer platform.
Agentspace and UK Data Residency
“Agentic” has become the code-word for how enterprises will practically start adopting AI — the pitch being that AI agents can be built both to help people do their work faster, and to interface better with customers. Agentspace is Google’s platform for building these assistants for work. One of the most notable features in it is NotebookLM for enterprises — a service that can ingest large amounts of information and then summarize it, now set up for use in large business environments.
Other features of Agentspace include multimodal search, and, of course, the building of AI agents using generative AI. Google launched Agentspace as a beta in December 2024, while Google announced data residency for the UK in October 2024, allowing for private and public organizations to store data at-rest, train AI and run inference on Gemini 1.5 Flash within the U.K. Today’s news brings Agentspace into the UK data residency region.
AI Development and Government Initiatives
The U.K. government is making a huge push to promote more AI development, both within its ranks and more widely as an industry. At the same time, European businesses are pushing for less reliance on Big Tech, in favor of homegrown businesses and services. The U.K. government has laid out plans, and is pressing individual divisions, to demonstrate how it could adopt more generative AI services aimed at speeding up paperwork and building services across data that had previously been siloed by function and department.
Google’s announcements are late to the party but could pave the way for more collaboration on the government front going forward.
HONESTAI ANALYSIS
These developments showcase Google's commitment to expanding its AI business presence in the U.K. and its efforts to address data residency concerns, provide financial incentives, and promote collaboration with AI startups. The partnership with key customers like BT and WPP further solidifies Google's position in the AI market and its role in shaping the future of AI services.