Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I dive into the key innovations behind Salesforce’s push toward the agentic AI enterprise.

Highlights

00:12 —Salesforce has introduced its Spring ’26 release, which will become available to customers on February 23. Salesforce Workspace, Salesforce's solution for unifying sellers and agents, is described as an intelligent hub. The solution acts as a single place for sellers to review agent performance, activity, and other analytics.

00:50 — It carries out a wide range of tasks, such as anticipating customer issues, enabling self-service resolution, and conducting issue analysis. Finally, Agentforce Builder provides organizations with a dedicated facility for building, testing, and refining agents in a single, conversational workspace.

01:41 — Here's my key takeaway: these new and enhanced features collectively push toward Salesforce's vision for the AI agentic enterprise, a place where humans and AI agents work collaboratively. What Salesforce is doing with its latest release is unifying the critical elements that will enable this vision.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

forced Microsoft out of the #1 spot in the Cloud Wars Top 10.

Highlights

00:03 — Going to go a little more deeply into the shuffles in the Cloud Wars Top 10, some big shake-ups here. Companies moving up and down. Microsoft, former number one, drops down to number three. Google Cloud, up to number one, Oracle to number two.

00:25 — I want to talk today about my main reasons for moving Microsoft down from number one to number three. The Microsoft tumble here is really centered on its deep cybersecurity flaws that were exposed about 18-24 months ago. The range and scope of these cybersecurity shortcomings and weaknesses outweigh the extraordinary financial revenue and commercial success.

01:38 — The significance of these cyber business shortcomings really came out about just over a year ago, when simultaneously both CEO Satya Nadella and Charlie Bell, who's Executive Vice President of Microsoft's Security business, both came out with public documents outlining how they were going in tandem to totally overhaul Microsoft's cybersecurity business, top to bottom.

02:44 — This came out only after a government watchdog had very publicly flagged these shortcomings that Microsoft had and the results, the disastrous results, that led to some issues in China and some exposures of valuable information and more after that. I covered this extensively through the middle of 2024 and later throughout the year,

04:18 — Microsoft has always said — Nadella has so frequently said — "Cybersecurity is our number one priority." Well, it's easy to say that. Apparently, it's very hard to do that and to live it. And this also then speaks to a lot of the questions I get about, "How do you do these rankings?" I take into account here the customer value that's being created.

05:35 — It's a remarkable time here. And, I just want to emphasize Microsoft's commercial success. Revenue growth has been remarkable. It's by far the biggest cloud company in the world. Its growth rates have been remarkable. Its RPO numbers are great, but this cybersecurity failing just absolutely knocks them out of the running to be the top dog here.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Bob Evans speaks with Jaison Correya, CEO of CLOUDVICE, in a special Cloud Wars Live episode focused on the real-world evolution of AI. Fresh off CLOUDVICE’s win of the 2025 Oracle North America Technology and Cloud AI Innovation Partner Award, Correya explains the purpose-driven innovation behind the company’s CORX platform. The discussion explores how AI, cloud, blockchain, and robotics converge to move intelligence beyond insights into action.

From Data to Action

The Big Themes:

• AI Must Drive Action: Jaison Correya makes clear that AI’s value is limited if it stops at analysis. While AI can generate insights and recommendations, it does not create impact unless it is connected to execution. CLOUDVICE’s approach focuses on enabling AI to act in the real world through orchestration with cloud platforms, blockchain security, and robotics. This shift moves AI from theoretical intelligence to operational autonomy.
• CORX Enables Convergence: CORX is positioned as the platform where multiple technologies converge into a single operational system. Correya describes CORX as the place where AI thinks, cloud scales, blockchain verifies, and robotics acts. Rather than treating these capabilities as separate tools, CLOUDVICE integrates them to eliminate fragmentation. This convergence allows organizations to securely scale AI while ensuring verification, governance, and execution remain tightly connected across digital and physical environments.
• Endless Automation Replaces Rules: Correya introduces “endless automation” as a new model that goes beyond static, rule-based workflows. Instead of relying on predefined scripts, CORX enables AI systems that reason, learn, and act as new data nodes are introduced. This allows automation to continuously evolve without constant reprogramming. For enterprises and public sector organizations, this means greater flexibility, efficiency, and resilience as conditions and requirements change.

The Big Quote: “AI by itself can produce results, it can analyze and recommend, but it cannot scale securely without a proper cloud platform.”

Learn more about CLOUDVICE and Jaison Correya:

Connect with Jaison Correya on LinkedIn and learn about CLOUDVICE.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In this episode of the AI Agent & Copilot Podcast, John Siefert, CEO of Dynamic Communities, is joined by Crystal Ahrens, Vice President of Solution Delivery and System Architecture at The Heico Companies LLC. Together, they explore how enterprises are moving beyond AI experimentation into real production outcomes, drawing on lessons from implementing agents and Copilot at scale. The conversation also previews what attendees can expect at the 2026 AI Agent & Copilot Summit NA, including real-world use cases, master classes, and community-driven insights.

Key Takeaways

• From readiness to productivity: Many organizations underestimate the effort required to prepare data and systems for agentic AI. The Summit addresses this gap by showcasing companies that have moved from AI readiness to AI productivity. “Everybody’s dipping their toes in AI. Everybody’s heard of it. But getting AI productive is not that easy to do. Here, we’re going to hear the real stories — how you get there and the major pitfalls.”
• Master classes reveal the real costs: One standout element of the Summit is its master class format, which goes beyond high-level vision to expose real operational details. These sessions openly address run costs, staffing models, and the balance between human and AI labor. Rather than positioning AI as a replacement for people, speakers show how AI augments human intelligence and accelerates outcomes.
• Human intelligence amplified by AI: AI doesn’t just automate tasks, it makes people more effective. Ahrens shares examples where Copilot and agentic AI dramatically reduce manual effort in financial analysis, help desk operations, and portfolio management. By handling exceptions, querying data, and surfacing insights faster, AI allows teams to focus on higher-value work.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore how AI and healthcare are intersecting at an unprecedented pace.

Highlights

00:14 — Discoveries in healthcare are coming at an unprecedented pace. Capabilities have never been greater, and new methods of consulting with and treating patients are consistently emerging. However, all of this progress brings with it a significant administrative burden, because the more variables you introduce, the more complexity arises.

00:34 — The key to unraveling this complexity and alleviating the burden on healthcare professionals is AI. Microsoft has announced that Anthropic has added tools, connectors, and skills to Claude in Microsoft Foundry. These new capabilities enable healthcare and life sciences organizations to leverage advanced reasoning, agentic workflows, and model intelligence.

01:30 — Claude for Healthcare provides domain-specific tools and resources to support both medical and operational workflows, covering a wide range of use cases such as patient care, triage, coordination, and claims processing. Claude for Life Sciences helps accelerate research and development by connecting to scientific platforms and enabling the generation of high-quality protocol materials with far greater ease.

02:23 — It's important to note that these services are delivered through Foundry, which benefits from a secure, enterprise-ready foundation provided by Microsoft Azure. This enables companies to scale their capabilities securely and compliantly. AI is most powerful and impactful when next-generation models like Claude are paired with infrastructure such as Foundry.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I highlight Oracle's rise to #2 in the Cloud Wars Top 10 rankings, driven by AI-led innovation and rapid cloud growth.

Highlights

00:06 — Oracle has surged from #3 to #2 in the Cloud Wars Top 10, driven by its focus on data as the foundation for AI innovation. Co-CEOs Mike Sicilia and Clay Magouyrk are leading Oracle during a period of strong momentum, with the company leapfrogging Microsoft in cloud and AI influence.

01:27 — Oracle is embedding AI deeply across its entire product portfolio, from cloud infrastructure and applications to databases, rather than adding it on later. This approach is fueling rapid growth and helping customers adopt AI faster, more easily, and at lower cost.

02:20 — Oracle’s co-CEOs, Mike Sicilia and Clay Magouyrk, face the unprecedented challenge of executing against a $523 billion backlog while continuing to drive innovation and strong customer engagement. Despite being smaller than major competitors, Oracle’s rapid AI-driven innovation has enabled it to surpass both AWS and Microsoft in cloud influence.

04:19 — The new co-CEOs are balancing rapid innovation with the challenge of executing a massive backlog, including but not limited to the $300 billion OpenAI deal. Drawing on deep internal and cloud infrastructure experience, Sicilia and Magouyrk are positioning Oracle for its next phase of growth.

Check out my full interview with Mike Sicilia here.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In this Cloud Wars Special Report, Bob Evans sits down with Mike Sicilia, CEO of Oracle, to discuss Oracle’s rise to the number-two position on the Cloud Wars Top 10. Their conversation explores why customers are increasingly gravitating toward Oracle, how AI embedded across infrastructure and applications is accelerating time to value, and why openness, multi-cloud flexibility, and data gravity are reshaping enterprise decision-making.

Oracle AI Strategy and Products

The Big Themes:

• AI Built In, Not Bolted On: Oracle’s momentum is rooted in embedding AI directly into its database, data platform, infrastructure, and applications rather than layering it on later. This architectural decision enables customers to train models, run inference, and deploy intelligent applications faster and more reliably. AI is foundational across ERP, retail merchandising, healthcare, and industry solutions. By integrating AI at every layer, Oracle reduces friction, accelerates adoption, and delivers immediate business value, helping customers move beyond experimentation into production-scale AI initiatives with confidence and speed.
• AI Changes Customer Engagement Models: The traditional technology upgrade cycle has been replaced by continuous, iterative innovation. With quarterly Fusion updates delivering hundreds of new AI-enabled features automatically, customers see constant improvements without added cost or disruption. Sicilia noted that AI data platforms and agent-building tools now enable daily innovation.
• Scale, Responsibility, and Customer Trust: With more than half a trillion dollars in contractual commitments, Oracle’s leadership views execution and trust as paramount. Sicilia says that Oracle’s decades-long experience running no-fail, mission-critical systems uniquely positions it for the AI Era. Customer success, support, and operational alignment have been restructured around an “AI-first, service-first” mindset.

The Big Quote: “Very quick time to value has a lot to do with data gravity, and we are the custodians of the data. We are, in fact, the creators of a lot of the data from our applications.”"

More from Oracle:

Learn about Oracle and AI or OCI for AI.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In this episode of the AI Agent & Copilot Podcast, John Siefert, President and Founder of AIAC, sits down with Seth Bacon, Director of Innovation at RSM, to explore how organizations can move beyond AI hype and into real, measurable value. Their conversation dives into practical adoption, industry-specific use cases, and what attendees can expect from the 2026 AI Agent & Copilot Summit NA, where real-world outcomes, not proofs of concept, take center stage.

Key Takeaways

• Industry-specific use cases: Bacon highlights that outcomes, data sets, and success metrics differ dramatically between sectors like manufacturing, retail, and professional services. By showcasing real industry accelerators, the summit helps attendees see what’s possible within their own vertical while also learning from how other industries solve similar problems using the same technologies.
• Accessible depth for every role: The summit is intentionally designed to support a wide range of maturity levels. Bacon notes that some attendees are just learning how to write better prompts, while others are orchestrating complex, multi-platform agentic systems.
• The power of in-person connection: While sessions provide structured learning, both speakers agree that the most impactful moments often happen outside the rooms. Bacon emphasizes that hallway conversations, meals, and informal networking create lasting relationships that extend well beyond the event. These connections give attendees trusted peers to call months later when challenges arise, making the summit not just a learning experience, but a long-term support network.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I break down how Google’s new Gemini 3 Flash delivers near-real-time AI performance with the speed, scale, and cost efficiency enterprises need as AI moves from Q&A to action.

Highlights

00:03 — Google has expanded its Gemini 3 model family with the introduction of Gemini 3 Flash, a model designed for speed without sacrificing quality. Gemini 3 Flash enables organizations to process data close to real time, and it's incredibly efficient, combining enhanced speed with better price performance, with this speed comes scalability.

00:48 — Ultimately, Gemini 3 Flash enables multimodal processing, which means it can build applications that analyze video and extract data in near real time. Gemini 3 Flash addresses the demand for AI-driven coding and supports the development of more autonomous AI ecosystems at scale, all in a cost effective manner.

01:14 — It delivers incredibly low latency, providing near real time experiences, which contrasts with many existing other large language models that often suffer from delays. Speed-optimized models like Gemini 3 Flash are becoming essential as the AI Revolution transitions from the Q&A to one of action.

01:40 — Customers now demand capabilities that drive live applications and assist users in real time. This is particularly important considering predicted growth of autonomous AI agents. Now beyond this, as users become more accustomed to AI, they expect multimodality.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Bob Evans sits down with Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, following Google Cloud’s rise to the #1 position on the Cloud Wars Top 10. Their conversation explores how Google Cloud’s customer-first philosophy, deep industry specialization, and long-term AI investments have reshaped its trajectory. Kurian shares how disciplined portfolio choices, partner ecosystems, and applied AI are helping customers innovate for the future rather than reinforce the past.

Customer-Led Cloud Strategy

The Big Themes:

• Customer-Driven Strategy Wins: Google Cloud’s ascent to the top spot is rooted in a consistent formula: deeply understanding customer problems and applying technology in distinctive, practical ways. The company’s direction has always been shaped by what customers actually need, not internal agendas. This mindset extends across product design, go-to-market execution, and partner alignment. By accepting that only customers can ultimately “say no,” Google Cloud has maintained focus and avoided distractions.
• Industry Specialization as a Differentiator: Early recognition that industries have fundamentally different needs led Google Cloud to build specialized expertise by vertical. Rather than offering generic solutions, the company invested in industry-aligned product teams, domain-specific capabilities, and tailored go-to-market motions. This approach allows customers to adopt cloud and AI faster, without reinventing best practices.
• Full-Stack AI, Built Over Time: Google Cloud’s AI strategy spans custom silicon (TPUs), infrastructure, models, platforms, and now agents. Kurian says that this wasn’t a sudden pivot—it’s the result of years of sustained investment, even when AI wasn’t fashionable. With Gemini positioned as a leading model, Google Cloud now supports both first-party and third-party models, giving customers flexibility. This layered approach allows enterprises to innovate at their own pace.

The Big Quote: “If you want to adopt a technology successfully, you need to pick a few important projects and do them well, rather than spraying on a lot of little projects.”

Learn more about Google Cloud and Thomas Kurian:

Check out the Google Cloud blog and Thomas Kurian.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.