Cloud commits crossed $1.2T. Yet, too many GTM teams still run marketplace as a side project. That disconnect is the single biggest theme after training hundreds of alliance, marketplace, and partnership leaders across 14 cohorts of Cloud GTM Leader.

Partnerships are one of AI’s most efficient GTM levers for scalable growth, according to the just published State of AI report. Yet only 3% of AI companies use channel / partnerships as their primary GTM motion. Why?

CEO, CRO, CFO and CPO do not buy into marketplace strategy for the same reason. Many alliance teams learn this the hard way. Cloud marketplace pitches often fail internally when companies repeat the same message to every executive.

$11.5B committed in a single day to distribute AI through private equity portfolios. OpenAI and Anthropic just made PE firms their newest “channel partners”.

Microsoft’s latest earnings call revealed how it’s rethinking AI monetization. Microsoft’s AI business crossed $37B in annual revenue run rate, up 123%.

Amazon shares hit an all-time high last week after reporting AWS’s fastest growth in 3+ years. AWS backlog reached record $364B. AWS grew 28% in Q1 on a $150B annual run rate. Acceleration like that on a base this large is almost impossible.

Google Cloud’s revenue grew a stunning 63% YoY. Commit backlog hit $462B (~2X in a single quarter). But the key partner signal was this: partner-sold Gemini Enterprise seats grew 9X YoY.

Nearly 100 alliance leaders joined us at 7:30 AM in Vegas for conversations Cloud GTM leaders at Next needed to have. Yesterday we hosted our largest GCP Marketplace Strategic Breakfast at Google Cloud Next.

Bain put partnerships at the center of competitive strategy for the AI era. Not just as a growth lever. As part of how companies will build, learn, and scale.