If I were you: Here are Google Cloud Next ’23 talks for six different audiences

I’m ready for big in-person conferences again. It’s time for more meaningful connections with colleagues and customers, more focused learning opportunities, and more random hallway conversations that make conferences fun. In a few days, we’re hosting Google Cloud Next ’23 in San Francisco, and it’s my first big Google event since joining 3+ years ago. Whether you’re in our ecosystem or not (yet), it’s a conference to pay attention to. We often ship products and ideas that spark others to follow our lead.

I flipped through the entire session catalog and pulled out talks that I think might appeal to a few distinct audiences: the Google Cloud-curious, those seeking customer stories, those craving a look at what’s next for devs, those needing a foundation in AI tech, those hoping for guidance on automation, and those who feel like geeking out. Here you go …

If I were you … and was Google Cloud-curious:

I didn’t really know much about Google Cloud when I first joined, to be honest. Many of you might know something about us, but haven’t gone deep. That’s ok. Here are five talks that you should invest in to get a great sense of what we’re up to.

1. Opening Keynote: The New Way to Cloud. If you can only attend one session, watch this one. We’ve got an all-star team that will get you excited about what’s possible with modern technology.
2. Developer Keynote: What’s Next for Your App? The absurdly-talented Forrest Brazeal is joining me as host of the day-2 keynote that I can guarantee will be a memorable affair. We’ve got live demos, unbelievable stories, and a handful of surprise guests.
3. What’s next for data and AI. In many ways, Google Cloud is known for Data and AI. That’s been our hallmark capability for a while now. We do much more than that, but I’m ok if this is what you think we’re best at! I’m excited to hear about all the wonderful updates we’ve got for you here.
4. Transform search experiences for customers and employees with Gen App Builder. Given all the generative AI hysteria, I figured it’d be useful for those unfamiliar to Google Cloud to get a sense for our managed service experience for gen AI app builders.
5. Compliance without compromise: Running regulated workloads on Google Cloud. The era of “cloud isn’t suitable for serious workloads” talk has been over for a while. Public clouds can support most anything. This will be a good talk for those who want to see how we tackle the most important workloads.

If I were you … and sought customers stories:

One of my favorite parts of our SpringOne conferences at Pivotal was all the amazing customer talks. We made an intentional push this year to hear from as many customers as possible, and the result is a program that’s chock-full of real-world stories.

For some reason I woke up this morning and wondered which companies had speakers at #GoogleCloudNext. Don't judge me.

I flipped through the whole catalog (https://t.co/lPxoce0SMT) and it's absurd at how many folks we can learn from. A subset:
1/n

— Richard Seroter (@rseroter) August 16, 2023

There are too many total sessions to list here, so here are six worth your attention.

1. Revolutionizing retail: Kroger and Dollar Tree, the importance of leveraging data and AI. Customers, not vendors, have the best AI ideas right now. This looks like a good talk about practical AI-based solutions for established firms.
2. How Goldman Sachs applies many layers of defense to secure container apps. Go fast and stay safe! This should be a terrific talk that shows how you can use modern app runtimes in even the most sensitive places.
3. How Alaska Airlines is transforming customer experiences using data and AI. At Next, I’m expecting to hear about AI in all sorts of departments, and all sorts of industries.
4. The path to untapping the value of generative AI in healthcare and life sciences. It’s not hard to imagine dozens of use cases for AI in the healthcare space. Bayer and HCA folks will share their experiences here.
5. Building a next-generation scalable game data platform using Firestore. Gaming companies often push the envelope, so a session like this will likely give you a sense of what’s coming for everyone else.
6. How Urban Outfitters and Nuuly are leveraging AI for modern demand forecasting. Here’s another good set of use cases for AI and technology in general.

If I were you … and craved a look at what’s next for devs:

This conference is for technologists, but not just devs. That said, I’m partial to dev-related topics, and it wasn’t hard to find a handful of talks that will get devs fired up about their jobs.

1. What’s next for application developers. My boss, and a couple of great folks from my team, are going to show you some powerful improvements to the developer experience.
2. An introduction to Duet AI in Google Cloud. We’ve got some very impressive capabilities for developers who want to use AI to work better. This talk features some people who really know their stuff.
3. How AI improves your software development lifecycle today and tomorrow. I’m part of this panel discussion where we’ll look at how each stage of the SDLC is impacted by AI.
4. Ten best practices for modern app development. This session should show you what’s now and next for dev teams.
5. Secure your software supply chain with Go. I like what the Go team—and Google in general—have been doing around supply chain security. As devs, we want confidence in our language and its toolchain.
6. Cloud Run and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) for faster application development. There aren’t seventeen ways to run containers in Google Cloud. We’ve got two primary options: GKE and Cloud Run. You’ll hear from two of the best in this session.
7. Increase developer productivity and security with cloud-based development. Seems like we’re close to the tipping point for cloud-based dev environments becoming mainstream.

If I were you … and needed a foundation in AI topics:

It’s easy to dismiss all the AI/ML mania as “just another vendor-fueled hype machine” like web3, edge, metaverse, IoT, and a dozen other things over the past decade. But this is different; real-use cases are everywhere, developers of all types are experimenting and excited, and the technology itself is legit. These six talks will give you a good baseline.

1. What’s new with generative AI at Google Cloud. Killer speakers for a killer topic. This is also a talk for the Google Cloud-curious.
2. Your guide to tuning foundation models. This is an important topic for those deciding on their AI strategy. Use out of the box models? Tune your own? Learn more here.
3. Prompt engineering: Getting the skill your team needs next. I don’t know how long we’ll have to be “good” at prompt engineering, but it’ll likely be a while before platforms hide all the prompt needs from us. So, learn the basics.
4. AI foundation models: Where are they headed? This looks like it has a good range of subjects that will also play a role in how you tackle AI in the years ahead.
5. Data governance and the business implications on generative AI. I don’t worry that people will use AI products; I worry that they won’t be allowed to use them for production workloads. Learn more about data governance considerations.
6. Building AI-first products: Getting started. I like the cross-industry perspective in this session, and expect to hear some creative ideas.

If I were you … and hoped for guidance on automating toil:

It’s not just about content for people who develop software. We also like content for those who create paths to production and operate platforms. Here are some sessions that stood out to me.

1. Best practices for DevOps velocity and security on Google Cloud. This session is full of smart presenters that will show you some good practices.
2. What’s new in modern CI/CD on Google Cloud. I suspect that Nate and Mia are going to enjoy giving. you a guided tour of the sneaky-good dev automation products we’ve got around here.
3. Build an AIOps platform at enterprise scale with Google Cloud. I like that this topic has Googlers and a customer (Uber) going through real life infrastructure.
4. Seamless infrastructure deployment and management with Terraform. There’s a lot of noise out there about Hashicorp’s recent licensing decision, but regardless, modern datacenters everywhere run on Terraform. Good topic to get into.
5. Scaling for success: A deep dive into how to prepare for traffic surges. Good product teams and platforms love automated scaling that keeps their teams from frantically responding to every surge.

If I were you … and just felt like geeking out:

Sometimes you just want to hear about tech, in a familiar domain or a new one. I noticed a few talks that will be a good spot to camp out, learn new things, and come away inspired.

1. Increase developer productivity and potential with Duet AI. These two are instrumental in this new product, and you’ll enjoy just hearing how they explain it.
2. Performance optimizations for Java applications. Aaron’s a good presenter, and this should be a good deep dive into an important topic.
3. Running large-scale machine learning (ML) on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Many folks are going to choose to train and run models themselves, and GKE is turning out to be a great place for that.
4. Building next-generation databases at Google: Cloud Spanner under the hood. Spanner is likely one of the four or five best-engineered products of the Internet era. This talk should be catnip for technology aficionados.
5. Extend your Cloud Run containers’ capabilities using sidecars. Cloud Run is such an excellent cloud service, and the new availability of sidecars opens up so many new possibilities. Get into it here.
6. High performance feature engineering for predictive and generative AI projects with Vertex AI Feature Platform. This seems to me like a session that’s good to attend even if you’re brand new to AI. Just sit and absorb new, intriguing ideas.
7. Platform engineering: How Google Cloud helps ANZ do modern app development. Three excellent presenters here, and a topic that is super relevant. Don’t miss this.

I hope to see many of you there in person! Let’s try and bump into each other. And if you can only attend via the online experience, it’ll be worth your time!