Vodafone and Google announced a ten-year strategic expansion of their existing partnership to bring new services, devices, and TV experiences to millions of Vodafone’s customers across Europe and Africa, supported by Google Cloud and Google’s Gemini models.
Vodafone and Google’s partnership is to help consumers take advantage of the latest hardware and digital technologies, including AI and cloud-based applications. Vodafone and Google will work together to improve and expand the range of products and services available in stores and online, supported by a refreshed customer experience rooted in the benefits of AI.
With the expanded partnership, Vodafone will use Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s enterprise-ready AI platform, to build, deploy, and scale machine learning models and AI applications powered by Google’s Gemini models. This will help increase the speed and ease with which Vodafone’s operating companies in multiple countries can innovate and launch new products.
Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group chief executive, said: “Together, Vodafone and Google will put new AI-powered content and devices into the hands of millions of more consumers. Using these services, our customers can discover new ways to learn, create, and communicate, as well as consume TV, on a scale we haven’t seen before.”
The companies have worked together to create a data repository (data lake) that houses Vodafone’s data and its existing AI and data analytics services on Google Cloud to ensure maximum security and adherence to legal requirements.
“Our expanded partnership with Vodafone will help bring our most advanced AI products and services, including our Gemini models, to more people across Europe and Africa,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. “I’m excited to see how Vodafone’s consumers, small businesses, and governments will use generative AI and Google Cloud to transform the way they work and access information.”
Through this partnership, Vodafone aims to offer its business customers enhanced cyber protection with its own soon-to-be-developed cloud-native cybersecurity solution, utilizing Google Cloud’s Security Operations platform. It will provide security incident and event management, as well as the latest software-based protection tools.
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