The early impact is already striking— agents in one enterprise example are delivering a 97% cost reduction.

Rayn Veerubhotla, MD of Partner Engineering at GCP, shared in our podcast how AI agents are reshaping both software distribution and partnerships models.

AI Agent Marketplace Momentum

Google Cloud launched the industry's first AI Agent Marketplace and 50+ partners have already deployed 1000s of agents on its marketplace, highlighting major momentum.

It's not a coincidence that Google Cloud hosts 90% of Gen AI unicorns—it shows the power of their vertically integrated AI stack from custom TPUs to Gemini models to marketplace and now Agent infrastructure.

GCP partner multiplier is compelling: for every $1 of Google Cloud consumption, there's $7+ in partner opportunity. With agents now enabling outcome-based models, this ratio could expand dramatically. Service partners can also package their IP into scalable, revenue-generating AI agents.

AI Agents already show real impact: One European insurer reduced accounts payable processing costs from €20-30 per transaction to 60 cents - a 97% cost reduction.

The Paradigm Shift for Partners

"The role of CIO is changing... in future, they'll be CHRO for agents," Rayn noted, predicting organizations will soon manage more virtual agents than human employees. For partners, this means evolving from software resellers to orchestrators of agentic workflows.

Real examples are emerging: PwC builds clinical assistant agents for oncologists, HCLTech created manufacturing quality agents. These solutions automate tasks and redesign business processes.

Three monetization models are crystallizing: per-transaction, outcome-based, and hybrid subscription-plus-usage, with marketplace supporting all.

This flexibility enables partners to align pricing with actual business value delivered.

A2A Protocol Is Critical

"Agents are all powerful, but they can be built in myriad ways," Rayn explained. Google's Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol solves the critical interoperability challenge—this opens unprecedented partnership opportunities.

Even Microsoft is now contributing to its open-source development.

The $100M Commitment

Google is backing this transformation with a $100M partner enablement fund, recognizing that "this is a $50B TAM that we see in near future." The focus: ensuring partners have the skills and capacity to deliver on enterprise AI agentic transformations.

The AI Agent Marketplace is set to become how enterprises buy, deploy, and orchestrate their digital workforce.

The question isn't whether this transformation happens, but how quickly leaders position themselves to win in this trend.