Google Cloud AI all-star partner Cloudwerx is making huge AI gains with enterprise customers, hiring top talent and driving agentic AI ROI for clients. CWX’s new CEO, Betsy Reed, explains how.
Cloudwerx’s new CEO, Betsy Reed, is fired up to tackle enterprise customers’ critical AI needs as the Google Cloud all-star partner hires top talent and doubles down on delivering ROI for its growing AI client list, backed by a new $23 million funding round.
“We are the enterprises’ go-to AI partner and have the resources behind us to do so,” said Cloudwerx’s co-founder and new CEO Reed.
“Our team has now dealt with some of the largest scale implementations in highly regulated industries. So large cloud migrations at scale that have driven $500 million to $1 billion dollars in consumption. And massive, massive data center exits,” Reed said. “All of this is fueling our expansion into agentic AI frameworks—so Google’s Agentspace, ADK, Agent2Agent and our model control plane for responsible AI orchestration. So that’s really where a lot of the hiring and the planning are going into.”
[Related: Google Gemini’s 10 New AI Products Launches, Programs And News]
Cloudwerx, also known as CWX, is an award-winning Google Cloud partner that has expanded significantly over the past few years both inside the U.S. and globally—including in Asia, Australia, Europe and South America—thanks to its stellar Google offerings and AI services.
New Funding, Accenture Hire And Google Enterprise AI Push
Last month, CWX raised $23 million in funding, led by Round13 Capital, aimed at unlocking AI’s true potential for enterprise businesses that may have jumped the gun on AI implementation.
“Our clients have seen 40 percent to 60 percent productivity gains using agentic systems, which is huge,” said Reed, who was appointed CEO in September.
“But all of it goes back to if it’s set up properly. That is the name of the game: it needs to be set up properly. So when we talk about agentic frameworks, that comes back to Agentspace and the new Gemini Enterprise AI platform,” she said.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based CWX is expanding its workforce globally by hiring a slew of top-notch talent, such as the recent hire of former Accenture executive Brendan Connolly as its new chief operating officer and head of its data and agentic AI division.
In a deep dive with CRN, Reed explains Cloudwerx’s ROI AI strategy for customers, the importance of Google’s new Gemini Enterprise platform, and her growth vision for the future.
“When you think about Cloudwerx and where we are and where we’re going: we are the AI optimization company for the enterprise. We have done massive cloud migrations at scale, data center exits, and we are leading the way in agentic frameworks using Google Cloud technology,” said Reed. “I feel very ready to take on this new challenge and lead the company in this very exciting time.”
What is your plan to drive AI sales and Google tech implementation with customers?
One of the main things is to help our customers modernize and scale, in general, and now to operationalize AI responsibly.
We see a lot of customers trying to leverage the power of AI and doing it fast because they want to get a head-up on their competition, but it’s creating some legacy debt that’s going to need to be cleaned up.
So as the new CEO, I will be heavily focused on AI transformation.
Operational excellence is going to be incredibly critical for Cloudwerx. So using AI in the way that we do our work and everything we do, we drink our own champagne to make sure that our customers know, and our team knows, that that’s fundamental—using Google’s AI technology to make sure our business works optimally based on the recommendations that we that we offer our customers.
What we are really shifting into is we are an AI-first company working for and with the enterprise.
We will always remain a Google exclusive services partner. What that means to us is: how do we bring AI to the enterprise in a way that’s responsible and it’s delivering a return on investment, which is a big thing.
Our clients have seen 40 percent to 60 percent productivity gains using agentic systems, which is huge. But all of it goes back to if it’s set up properly.
That is the name of the game: it needs to be set up properly. So when we talk about agentic frameworks, that comes back to Agentspace and the new Gemini Enterprise AI platform.
How do you deliver customer ROI with agentic technology?
A lot of AI POCs fail when they’re run and managed internally at companies.
It’s not that I don’t think people have competent individuals at their companies, but I think there’s a few issues there.
One: there’s not a lot of ownership, oversight and accountability when they are seen as pet projects. There’s probably not a lot of use case definition from the jump based on business value.
It might just start in a small team, ‘Hey, let’s try this out?’ But it really doesn’t have a ton of impact or visibility, so it’s going to fail. That’s why we do recommend you start from the top.
Every board and every executive team at the top companies in the world want to understand how to leverage the power of AI. So the strategy and the mission need to come from the top in order for it to get the visibility that it wants.
So as a company, our mission is to build that intelligent infrastructure that can enable individuals at companies to do what humans do best—the creative work, the relationship work, the strategic work, and then allow the power of AI technology to fill in the gaps. That is the mission.
We feel like true ROI needs to start with a use case and use cases that reduce friction, standardize decision making, and then really make sure that you’re improving utilization of data and human capital.
It may sound trite, but AI is not a replacement for people.
It’s a way to optimize human performance. I feel that deeply in terms of what we can do for our customers.
How will you use the $23 million in new capital?
Those dollars are what really allow us to invest in the key areas to make sure that we’re true about our commitment to be the enterprise, go-to AI partner and have the resources behind us to do so.
We want to keep cash on our balance sheet to make sure we’re primed to grow and that we have no limitations when it comes to being able to service our customers.
We’ve already done a bit of hiring and brought on some incredible resources, and we will continue to do so. What we’re looking for is best-in-breed people. The people that are best of their craft in technology.
We hire people that are highly educated with PhDs in areas that most people don’t even know exist in AI and ML.
We have folks that we also are going to be bringing on the team that have managed extremely large-scale programs of work for large customers.
We’ll be fueling key areas of growth in hiring, scaling and ensuring that we have no limitations when it comes to bringing on the right people for the job.
All of this is fueling our expansion into agentic AI frameworks—so Google Agentspace, ADK, Agent2Agent and our model control plane for responsible AI orchestration. So that’s really where a lot of the hiring and the planning are going into.
Also, Round13 is a true partner in our growth.
In addition to that, the $23 million, they have provided amazing support from a partnership perspective, advisory perspective, and board seat perspective. So I’m so happy about that partnership for more than just the dollars and cents.
What do some customers get wrong about AI and how is Cloudwerx helping them unlock AI true capabilities?
We believe governance is a key element. It closely aligns with what we have said from the jump, ‘If you don’t have governance, you’re going to be doing a ton of cleanup.’
So six or 12 months down the road, we foresee a number of companies that went in and said, ‘Hey, how do we bolt-on this agent, chatbot, AI technology tool?’
It reminds me of back in the day when startups were just spinning up as much as they could without caring about the cost. Then they had to go back in and do cost optimization and performance optimization.
The same thing is going to be happening as it relates to AI.
Because you’re going to have to go back in and say, ‘Was this set up properly? Was it set up with governance in mind? Is it compliant? Is your data clean and inaccurate?’
You can set up the best agentic framework in the world, but if the data is either: non-compliant, isn’t governed, or not responsible—those are huge liabilities. But also if it’s not clean, it’s not helpful, right? It’s going to lead to conclusions that are completely useless for your organization.
So if you set it up properly from the jump and you align with Google: it will be compliant. You will have governance. It will be responsible. That’s really the framework it provides.
We are also planning on doing quite a bit of cleanup here in the next six to 12 months, with customers that have that have pulled the trigger too quickly on all sorts of various systems.
So we’re very bullish on Gemini Enterprise being an agentic AI platform as an excellent way to ensure that you’re setting things up properly from the start.
Talk about Cloudwerx moving from the SMB market to the enterprise, while growing alongside your customers?
When we started as a Google Cloud partner, one of the ways we wanted to offer unique value to the market, especially being a new kid on the block, was to offer enterprise-level services and resources to the startup segment.
So new companies, mostly tech companies, that are getting off the ground want to utilize Google Cloud. That is where we could be highly differentiated in a low-competition market and acquire customers.
In that, we acquired a number of customers and from a percentage of them, they grew and developed in and scaled into larger organizations. Just like startups, some succeed, some fail.
Then, each year since, we’ve been able to really move upmarket with our customers.
Then within the Google ecosystem—as we’ve developed our brand and notoriety for the work we do, the quality of work, the customer satisfaction, and as we’ve built and grown out our team and had access to more resources like capital—we grew into the enterprise.
How big do you think CWX can get?
We don’t have ambitions to become the size of a Deloitte or Accenture, but we do have ambitions to be big in the areas we are uniquely qualified to service. There is no one better.
Whether we were working with startups or more corporate markets or now the enterprise, Cloudwerx has been able to retain that reputation and follow through, regardless of what segment.
It just happens to be that now we’re in the enterprise, so there’s a lot more quick scaling and hiring we need to do. From the jump, we’ve had the technical resources—like our CTO who came from Microsoft—and all of our leadership has been primed and ready for enterprise.
Our team has now dealt with some of the largest-scale implementations in highly regulated industries.
So large cloud migrations at scale that have driven $500 million to $1 billion dollars in consumption. And massive, massive data center exits.
Moving forward, you can expect us to be deploying our resources on those large, highly sophisticated customers with large-scale challenges.
What are your thoughts of Google’s new Gemini Enterprise platform, which Agentspace has now been rolled into?
In January, we were one of the first 20 launch partners for Agentspace. I believe we were the first to deploy Agentspace internally at our company.
It’s an incredible technology when used properly with the right connectors, implementation and the right use cases rolled out.
So we’re big fans of Agentspace. Something that I think goes unmentioned in many cases is the enterprise search capabilities of Agentspace as well as its security.
Now, rolling it under Gemini Enterprise is a great move.
Gemini Enterprise isn’t a chatbot. It’s really a framework for organizations that want to be AI-native. That is what it provides. Having Agentspace be a solution within Gemini Enterprise makes sense.
I applaud Google and [CEO Thomas Kurian]. Gemini Enterprise has this five-pillar design: it’s brains, it’s the workbench, it’s Task Force, it’s context, and it’s governance.
This is the architecture that enterprises need.
