Breaking Down Data Silos with Google Agentspace
Will Agentspace finally unlock “collective brilliance”?
We talked to two seasoned IT and data professionals, Codento’s very own Markku “Pulu” Pulkkinen and Google Cloud’s Ted Schönbeck, about the upcoming transformation marked by Google’s newest AI innovation, Agentspace. Let’s hear what they have on their minds.
“For decades within leading American technology organizations, I’ve observed the persistent challenge of fragmented data and its impact on operational effectiveness,” explains Markku Pulkkinen, Codento’s Senior Vice President and continues: “I’ve seen the promises, the hype, and the inevitable disappointment when challenges related to shared organizational knowledge persist and data silos remain. Despite advancements in enterprise data management, the promise of unified organizational knowledge remains largely unrealized.”
According to Markku, examples of data challenges in key organizational functions include:
- Human Resources: Inefficient data aggregation hinders efficient employee management and prevents the automation of critical administrative processes.
- Sales: Suboptimal lead management and the absence of real-time, actionable insights limit the ability to personalize sales strategies and drive revenue growth.
- Marketing: Inability to extract meaningful campaign performance data and inefficient content management processes hold back targeted marketing efforts and ROI optimization.
- Software Development: Excessive time spent on bug detection, code optimization, and compliance adherence diverts resources from strategic innovation and makes development work mind-numbing.
Persistent data silos inevitably cause operational inefficiencies and block the ability to leverage collective organizational intelligence in every organization. However, Google Cloud’s most recent AI innovation, Agentspace, promises to address these challenges effectively and deliver on the promise of a truly integrated and efficient enterprise.
Two Decades of Not-so-collective Brilliance
Some two decades ago, the pursuit of Markku Pulkkinen and his colleagues to connect data repositories at a leading database provider revealed the limitations of siloed data strategies. “The solutions of that day could often only partially solve the business problem,” Markku explains. “Subsequently, the industry pivoted towards collaborative platforms and CRM solutions, recognizing the strategic advantage of leveraging collective intelligence and actionable insights from sales data.” According to Markku, this evolution underscored the critical role of interconnectedness and collaboration in driving business success. “However, reflecting on my time at another tech giant back then, despite the best of intentions, we were nowhere near breaking down the data silos within the sales function, let alone across the entire organization.”
Over the years, Markku’s journey in enterprise data has been like peeling an onion: you reveal the complexities of seamless data integration layer by layer. In his own words, it has frequently resembled a Whac-A-Mole game, with new issues constantly appearing. A few years back, Markku moved from the offices of global giants to Codento, a leading Nordic Google Cloud Premier Partner. Therefore, he is now excited to see that it is time for Google Agentspace to step into the data silos game.
As the other guru we had the pleasure to interview, Google Cloud’s Nordic Chief Technology Officer, Ted Schönbeck, puts it: “Agentspace is about unlocking your organization’s collective brilliance, providing an abstraction layer on top of AI that makes it incredibly simple for the average user to harness its power.”
Agentspace: A Collection of the Best of Google
Google Cloud’s Agentspace promises Enterprise AI spiced up with Google’s search capabilities. Skeptics might say, “Here we go again!” However, this time we think it comes with a new twist.
Ted from Google summarizes the three main points of Agentspace as follows:
- Search, i.e., any information available across the enterprise
With Agentspace, the days of siloed search and inconsistent AI agent experiences should be over. It offers a unified platform for information discovery regardless of the underlying technologies, breaking down barriers between teams and departments. For any organization, it’s like a single, company-branded “portal” with more than 100 ready integrations and Google-grade search capabilities across the enterprise.
- NotebookLM, i.e., entirely new ways to interact with data
We’ve all wasted productive time looking for documents, data, and answers in the company intranet or other data sources. Agentspace introduces new ways to interact with any data. As Ted puts it: “NotebookLM is much more than just its cool feature of creating a podcast from any of your datasets. It is about building a library of notebooks or chatbots on all the topics that are important to you. For example, you could collect your 100 most important product briefs into a single chat, making it easy to interact with them whenever you need.”
- Expert Agents, i.e., Automate any business function
Agentspace includes pre-built expert AI agents to streamline tasks like data analysis, content generation, and customer support. It is also a platform for creating custom expert agents tailored to fit unique workflows, proprietary data sources, or business processes. Agentspace addresses the challenge of controlling enterprise data sharing by adhering to any complex structure of access hierarchies, thereby enforcing proper access control. Your tireless assistants only have keys to the doors they should have.
The Data Transformation Finally at Your Doorstep
“As I look to the coming months and years in IT,” says Markku Pulkkinen, “the possibilities of Google Agentspace are fascinating – even for a seasoned, slightly cynical tech trooper like me.”
Agentspace stands out due to its independence from any specific technology stack. It allows seamless integration with your existing systems, such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Jira, or Google Workspace. It harnesses Google’s substantial investments and expertise in search and AI, ensuring top-tier performance and an unforeseen experience when interacting with data. The solution’s modularity means you can start with a reasonable upfront investment and scale as needed. Furthermore, the insights provided by Agentspace are highly reliable, as they are grounded solely in your enterprise data.
Ted Schönbeck is Google Cloud’s Nordic CTO. He has more than 20 years of experience in IT, with companies like IBM, Dell, VMware, and Red Hat. Ted is a passionate cloud, digital transformation, and AI evangelist and a frequent event speaker.
Markku Pulkkinen, SVP at Codento, leads Google Cloud partnerships and business development, drawing on 25+ years at Microsoft and Oracle. He’s a proven leader in public cloud adoption, focused on driving productivity and potential through technology.
Please stay tuned for our next blog that reveals more about the functionality of Agentspace, Ted Schönbeck’s and Markku Pulkkinen’s viewpoints about the future, and how we at Codento see each of your organization’s above-mentioned functions benefit from this emerging innovation from Google.
