Google Cloud's Karthik Narain - 'We're in the position AWS was 10 years ago' as AI creates 'Why not Google?' moment

Karthik Narain, Google Cloud's newly appointed Chief Product and Business Officer, believes the company has reached a strategic inflection point comparable to AWS's position a decade ago - when Amazon dominated conversations about what cloud computing could achieve. Now, he argues, Google Cloud holds a similar advantage in AI. In his first interview since joining from Accenture, Narain tells diginomica that the rise of AI-first transformation has fundamentally repositioned Google Cloud in the enterprise market, creating what he describes as a "why not Google?" moment for buyers reassessing their technology strategies.

The claim is bold, particularly given that Google Cloud currently holds around 13% of the global cloud infrastructure market compared to AWS's 30% and Microsoft Azure's 20%. But Narain's argument isn't about raw market share - it's about Google’s value to buyers at a moment when enterprises are being forced to rethink their ...