Google Cloud Vertex AI

Vertex AI is Google Cloud's flagship unified machine learning platform, designed to orchestrate the entire ML lifecycle from data ingestion to model deployment. By 2026, Vertex AI has evolved into a central hub for 'Agentic AI,' integrating the Gemini 1.5 and 2.0 multimodal model families with enterprise-grade RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and grounding capabilities via Google Search. The architecture abstracts the underlying infrastructure, allowing developers to switch between pre-trained models in the Model Garden—which includes first-party Gemini models, open-weights models like Llama 4, and third-party models like Anthropic's Claude. Its technical core is built on Vertex AI Pipelines (based on Kubeflow), a managed Feature Store for high-performance embeddings, and an integrated Agent Builder that simplifies the creation of autonomous workflows. For enterprises, it offers a distinct advantage through its deep integration with BigQuery for 'Data-to-AI' workflows, enabling models to be trained directly on petabyte-scale data without egress. The 2026 market position emphasizes 'responsible AI' with built-in safety filters, data sovereignty controls, and high-performance TPU v5p/v6 infrastructure for specialized fine-tuning.