Google Cloud Next 2026: Top AI Startups Take Center Stage

Google Cloud Next 2026 is currently underway in Las Vegas, and a clear message is emerging: Google is aggressively courting AI startups to join its cloud platform. To that end, the company has made several significant announcements aimed at supporting these startups. At the forefront of these announcements is a new $750 million budget allocated to help Google Cloud partners—ranging from early-stage startups to large consulting firms—sell more AI agents to enterprises.

This funding can be utilized for a variety of costs, including Gemini proof-of-concept projects, Google forward-deployed engineers, cloud credits, and deployment rebates. Several notable startups have been highlighted for their use of Google Cloud, either by signing on anew or expanding their existing footprint. Lovable, a rapidly growing AI coding startup, is launching a new coding agent through Google's enterprise app marketplace.

As of February, Lovable was on track to achieve an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $400 million. Notion, a highly valued AI-infused document productivity app from Silicon Valley, recently valued at approximately $11 billion, is leveraging Gemini models to power its text and image generation features. Meanwhile, Gamma, an AI-powered presentation tool valued at $2.1 billion, is utilizing Google's cutting-edge image model, Nano Banana 2, along with other Google Cloud features.

Inferact, a commercial inference startup founded by the creators of the popular open-source project vLLM, is accessing Nvidia's GPUs through Google Cloud, in addition to using the tech giant's AI stack. ComfyUI, a popular open-source tool for creating AI-generated images and multimedia, also offers access to Nano Banana 2 and utilizes other Google Cloud features. Google Cloud also gave a shout-out to a range of other startups this year, including ChorusView, which develops AI-powered smart tags for tracking goods; ExaCare AI, which creates AI software for post-acute medical care facilities; and Insilica, which generates AI-created regulatory-compliant chemical safety reports.

The list also includes Optii, which offers AI-enhanced hotel operations software; Parallel AI, which builds web search and research APIs for AI agents; and Proximal Health, which provides AI-powered software for automating insurance claims adjudication. Additional startups recognized by Google Cloud include Reducto, which performs AI-powered document parsing; Stord, which handles e-commerce fulfillment and parcel operations; and Stylitics, which offers AI image generation software for retailers. Other notable mentions are Temporal, a developer cloud environment designed to prevent failures; Vapi, which provides dev tools for building conversational voice agents; and Vurvey Labs, which conducts synthetic market research via AI agents.

The roster of startups continues with Wand, an in-game assistant for single-player PC games; Watershed, which provides software for enterprises to report on and manage sustainability programs; and ZenBusiness, an all-in-one back-office tool for small businesses that includes an AI chat assistant.