Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I spotlight Thomas Kurian’s game-changing customer strategy at Google Cloud.

Highlights

00:03 — We’ve got a new number one on the Cloud Wars Top 10. That’s Google Cloud. They’ve leapfrogged Microsoft, and Oracle has moved up to the number two spot, with Microsoft coming in at number three. This is reflective of a very, very different business environment that we’re facing here at the beginning of the AI Economy.

00:37 — I had the chance to speak with Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian. The big point that Kurian made is you’ve got to understand the customer. But, you’ve got here a world-class technology company that, before Kurian’s arrival in 2019, had as its sole focus: make world-class technology and the world will beat a path to our door.

02:15 — As I said, Google Cloud has leapfrogged Microsoft to the number one spot on the Cloud Wars Top 10. The big thing is this customer understanding. And Kurian, in our video interview, describes a number of scenarios across industries, across domains, and how Google Cloud ties that all together for customer success going forward.

03:38 — I’ve had lots of lively discussions with people who believe that because Microsoft and AWS have more revenue than either Google Cloud or Oracle, therefore those are the dominant players. There’s market presence on one hand, and then there’s this key thing which is: How do you help customers build their futures rather than just perfecting what they’ve already done in the past?

04:15 — And I want to just say congratulations to everyone at Google Cloud for a monumental ascent — from number nine back in 2017, when I started the Cloud Wars Top 10, to number one. And overtaking Microsoft was an extraordinary feat, and that is driven by what customers want, not by internal tech-industry Silicon Valley metrics.

• Check out my full conversation with Thomas Kurian here.

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Key Takeaways

• Overview: Taylor defines accessibility as the "design and provision of products, services, environments, and information that can be easily used, accessed, and understood by everyone, especially those with disabilities." At its core, it’s about creating equitable experiences for all.
• Accessibility impacts: When noting the impacts of accessibility for organizations and businesses, Taylor explains that it offers ethical, financial, legal, and even SEO-related advantages, highlighting an overlap between accessibility best practices and search optimization. "The more accessible you're making your stuff to humans, the more accessible you're making it to machines.”
• Understanding the value: Helping companies understand the value of accessibility can take time, so Taylor explains that he approaches it from multiple angles, including the significant legal benefits. By ensuring products and websites comply with laws like the U.S. Rehabilitation Act and the European Accessibility Act, organizations can avoid fines, reduce legal risk, and maintain access to international markets.
• Accommodations: Workplace accommodations can greatly improve employee morale, productivity, and retention by giving people what they need to do their best work. As Taylor puts it, even simple adjustments can "unlock so much potential” and help organizations avoid the high costs of turnover.
• Learn more: Taylor describes a new podcast project that aims to educate the community about diverse disabilities while giving people a platform to share their lived experiences. The series will highlight the spectrum of experiences when it launches publicly this month.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I examine Satya Nadella’s call to shift AI focus from capabilities to societal contributions.

Highlights

00:21 — One of the leading voices in the AI Revolution, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, has outlined his vision for AI in a blog post. Nadella states that 2026 will be a pivotal year for AI. He says we are now past the initial discovery phase and entering a phase of widespread diffusion. Now is the time to hone in on real-world impact, to emphasize what needs to be done.

01:10 — Nadella focuses on three areas that require more attention. First, he suggests that we should move beyond the notion of AI slop versus AI sophistication. Instead, we need to view AI capabilities as, and I quote, “scaffolding for human potential,” rather than a substitute.

01:40 — Secondly, Nadella explains that we need to develop more sophisticated engineering that shifts the focus from specific AI models to broader systems. This involves orchestrating multimodal architectures and, crucially, implementing agents. Finally, Nadella emphasizes that for AI to gain social acceptance, these systems must be evaluated based on their real-world impact.

02:10 — This statement is Nadella’s most explicit reference to how Microsoft has positioned itself, particularly through the strong statements made by Microsoft AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, regarding the company’s commitment to human-centered AI. It’s very encouraging to see this sentiment reinforced by leadership.

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Bob Evans, Founder of Cloud Wars, joins John Siefert, CEO, Cloud Wars and Dynamic Communities, to unpack one of the most dramatic reshuffles in the history of the Cloud Wars Top 10. Together, they explore what Bob calls “tectonic shifts” as Google Cloud rises to number one, Oracle surges to number two, and Microsoft slips to third. The conversation goes well beyond rankings, diving into AI platforms, enterprise outcomes, customer-driven innovation, and why growth, not size alone, defines cloud leadership heading into 2026.

A New Cloud Order

The Big Themes:

• Growth Transparency Matters: IBM’s exit from the Top 10 underscores a critical principle — financial transparency is essential when growth is a core ranking metric. While IBM’s leadership and strategy is worthy of praise, the lack of disclosed cloud performance data makes objective evaluation impossible. The Cloud Wars Top 10 prioritizes measurable momentum that reflects customer demand.
• AWS Reflects the Past, Not the Future: AWS’s drop to number seven does not reflect failure but rather strategic timing. While AWS continues to perform well financially, its narrative is more aligned with the cloud’s past than its AI-driven future. In contrast, competitors are redefining platforms around agents, inference, and AI-native architectures. The Cloud Wars rankings reward forward momentum, and AWS now faces pressure to reassert innovation leadership rather than rely on historical dominance.
• The AI Platform Battle Is Escalating: A central theme is the race to become the trusted AI platform. ServiceNow and Palantir are the most explicit contenders, while Google Cloud closely follows. Customers want AI platforms that integrate existing systems, deliver fast outcomes, and scale securely. The winners will be those who enable co-creation, not just consumption, as enterprises build AI capabilities tailored to their specific needs.

The Big Quote: "For a while we talked about the hyperscalers as if they're all very homogeneous, all exactly the same, just different variations on a theme. I think what the new Cloud Wars Top 10 reflects is that is not the case at all."

More about the Top 10 Shifts:

Check out the updated Cloud Wars Top 10 List.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore the massive reshuffle in the Cloud Wars Top 10 driven by the rise of AI-first strategies. Later this morning, I'll expand upon these themes in a second fireside chat with my CEO, John Siefert, specifically focusing on numbers four through ten on the list.

Highlights

00:03 — We’ve got more big changes going on in the Cloud Wars Top 10. SAP moves up to number four. Palantir rockets from number 10 to number five. AWS tumbles from number four to number seven, and OpenAI makes its debut on the Cloud Wars Top 10 at number 10.

00:37 — So, SAP's got 25% consistent growth for the past couple of years. Clearly, customers are voting for SAP as they move aggressively into agents. Palantir is intensely disruptive, but not just in technology and not just to be different. It feels that today’s move — the evolution from this into the AI economy — requires new types of technology.

01:46 — In Q3, the last quarter for which Palantir has reported numbers, revenue grew at a remarkable 63% to almost 1.2 billion during that Q3. The number of salespeople that Palantir has actually went down. So, it's finding new ways to engage with customers. AWS started off as number one. It's still a great company, but “great company” is no longer good enough.

02:45 — They are not, though, being the leaders — the agenda setters. That has slipped over to Google Cloud; Oracle has taken that away. So, they are the big leaders here, as AWS goes from number four to number seven. OpenAI makes its debut in the Cloud Wars Top 10, as they have now much more than the ChatGPT phenomenon from three years and three months ago.

03:49 — Got lots of people now, and certainly Palantir, saying, “Hey, we’re an AI platform company as well.” The whole premise for the last nine years of the Cloud Wars Top 10 is tech vendors are now able make their own internal operations, product development, how they engage, who they partner with, how they go to market, tied very tightly to the directions that customers want to go.

04:19 — In the old days, the tech vendor sat back, said, “I’m going to make my server 2% faster and 3% less expensive than theirs,” and expected, you know, the world to beat a path to their door. No longer the case. Now, it’s the tech companies that have to respond incredibly fast and incredibly decisively and effectively to the new directions that customers are heading in.

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Bob Evans sits down with John Siefert to unveil major shifts in the Cloud Wars Top 10 rankings in this first of a two-episode series. The discussion centers on why Google Cloud now claims the number-one position, Oracle surges to number two, and Microsoft slides to number three after a historic run. Evans explains how customer empathy, ecosystem strength, security posture, leadership vision, and forward-looking execution — not just financial performance — drive the rankings.

The Big Themes:

• The Cloud Wars Top 10 Is Holistic: The Cloud Wars Top 10 is intentionally designed to move beyond narrow metrics like revenue or technical benchmarks. As Bob Evans explains, the rankings reflect an amalgam of financial performance, innovation velocity, ecosystem maturity, leadership vision, and customer impact. This outside-in methodology evaluates how well vendors understand where customers are today and how effectively they help them move forward.
• Google Cloud’s Rise Reflects Customer Empathy: Google Cloud’s move from number two to number one reflects a long-term transformation rather than a sudden spike. Evans highlights how Google Cloud evolved from a technology-first organization disconnected from enterprise realities into a customer-centric platform under Thomas Kurian’s leadership. Empathy for customers’ existing environments, focus on sovereignty, security, compliance, and open ecosystems enabled Google Cloud to convert its technical strengths into market leadership and sustained growth.
• Oracle’s Momentum Is About the Future: Oracle’s move into the number two spot is driven by its success winning new, forward-looking business — particularly AI-driven workloads. Evans points to Oracle’s Remaining Performance Obligation (RPO) growth and aggressive go-to-market innovation. Oracle’s willingness to finance cloud expansion differently is framed not as weakness, but as strategic differentiation. Leadership continuity, operational experience, and a clear vision for AI infrastructure and data-centric cloud services are fueling Oracle’s ascent.

The Big Quote: “Nobody owns first place. You just rent it, and that lease can be pulled at any time if somebody else is doing a better job.”

Stay tuned for the second episode on Cloud Wars Top 10 shifts, coming tomorrow.

More about the Top 10 Shifts:

Check out the updated Cloud Wars Top 10 List.

Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In this episode of the AI Agent & Copilot Podcast, host Giuseppe Ianni, Cloud Wars Analyst and thought leader, sits down with Bob McAdam, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Tasklet and a Programming Committee member for the 2026 AI Agent & Copilot Summit NA. Together, they explore how AI has evolved from hype to hands-on reality, what attendees can expect at this year’s summit, and why practical, ERP-focused use cases are now top of mind for partners and end users alike.

Key Takeaways

• From Talk to Tangible Value: AI conversations have evolved rapidly over the past year, and McAdam emphasizes that organizations are now demanding proof of value. Businesses no longer want abstract discussions about Copilots—they want to see how agents improve ERP workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and drive measurable efficiency. This shift reflects a broader maturity in the market, where curiosity has turned into expectation.
• Session Selection Beyond the Buzzwords: As a Programming Committee member, McAdam looks for sessions that go deeper than hype. He values speakers who bring specificity—manufacturing, distribution, documentation, or customer service—rather than generic AI narratives. Even “unsexy” topics like process documentation earn a place because of their real-world importance.
• AI as a Career Accelerator: The conversation highlights that AI adoption isn’t just about company transformation—it’s also about individual growth. Many attendees come to the summit to build personal competitive advantage, learning skills and mental models they can apply immediately. Experimenting with AI in personal workflows often becomes the gateway to professional adoption.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I break down why Google Cloud now tops the Cloud Wars Top 10.

Highlights

00:08 — This week we have named Google Cloud as the new number one company on the Cloud Wars Top 10. Oracle has risen to number two. Microsoft slides down to number three. Microsoft’s held that top spot for four years. It’s three times bigger than Google Cloud, but there’s much more that goes into the Cloud Wars Top 10 than size alone.

01:30 — We’ve got coming up a video with John Siefert, our CEO, and also a detailed article that looks at a lot of the key indicators behind Google Cloud’s rise, points to some of the challenges Microsoft has faced, and also mentions how Oracle, too, has moved up here because it is doing more of what customers need to be successful in the AI Economy.

02:06 — Thomas Kurian has just done a phenomenal job. When Kurian started, he said, “I need to triple the size of our sales organization.” So, while Google Cloud's always had great technology, its connection to customers and its way of engaging with customers was something that Kurian pretty much had to build from scratch.

02:57 — I think Microsoft’s cloud revenues, relative to Oracle, are seven times bigger, but it’s more than that. Who’s leading the innovation agenda? Who is taking these new ideas forward? Who is helping customers adapt quickly, transform quickly, and become the sort of companies they’re going to need to be to succeed and win in the AI Economy?

03:46 — When I started, a lot of people said, “You can’t compare an infrastructure company to an applications company.” I said, “Sure, I can.” I felt that often these lists of who the leaders are in different markets or categories were driven by Silicon Valley, inside-the-industry perspectives. Here, I’ve tried to take a look at it for these nine years from the point of view of customers.

04:24 — And I think in this case, regardless of the size differential, Google Cloud is doing more on both cloud and AI. I think about what Oracle’s done to be able to come up to number two. A handful of years ago, Oracle said, “We’re going full force into the cloud infrastructure business. We’re going to become a hyperscaler.” Many so-called experts said that’s crazy.

05:01 — Yet, Oracle has built a huge and fast-growing business out of that. Okay, again, going back a handful of years, there were people who said AWS is the number one company. It’s the king of the cloud. Nobody will ever be able to touch it or displace it. Well, Microsoft did that. Nobody owns first place. It’s a temporary lease.

06:03 — It’s now Google Cloud, Oracle, Microsoft as the top three companies. We’ll give you lots more details on who’s in the number four through number ten spots going forward over the next week or two, and then within that and going forward, deeper analyses of each company and where they stand.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at the continued strength of the Microsoft–OpenAI partnership, despite past tensions, through the launch of GPT-5.2.

Highlights

00:12 — Microsoft has announced the general availability of OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 in Microsoft Foundry. It stated that introducing a new frontier model series, purposefully built to meet the needs of enterprise developers and technical leaders, is setting a new standard for a new era.

00:39 — The GPT-5.2 series boasts deeper logical reasoning, richer context handling, and better execution for agentic AI tasks. The GPT-5.2 series’ advanced reasoning means that it takes less effort to achieve more, all the while providing better safety and guardrails. Microsoft is pushing the adoption of the GPT-5.2 series as a way for developers to supercharge their agentic AI efforts.

01:35 — A few months ago, when it seemed that the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft was deteriorating, it would have been a significant setback if the company’s models weren’t continually integrated into the Microsoft developer ecosystem. However, that has not been the case, which is a testament to the continued collaborative nature of the AI Revolution.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I connect the dots between tech disruption and retail transformation.

Highlights

00:15 — We see now the true emergence from what I’ve called for a long time the AI Revolution, now into the AI Economy. NVIDIA, with a strategic partnership with Mercedes-Benz, is not just Mercedes-Benz using a little bit of NVIDIA’s software inside its new cars. It's calling it an AI-driven car. Google then also stepped outside of the tech industry to buy an energy firm.

01:15 — Could it be the merging of the energy and the tech industries here to provide the power behind AI? Next week there’ll be the giant National Retail Federation show. I suspect that, you know, 80 or 90% of the announcements there will be about new technology and AI and cloud being used to revolutionize and further stimulate innovation and growth in the retail sector.

03:31 — So I think what we’ll see here throughout 2026 — it’s been a busy first week or so in here — we’re going to see the entire global economy rocked by these changes, as AI is infused into every facet of what businesses are doing, and the AI providers and cloud providers begin to move laterally and, in some cases, aggressively into different markets here.

04:30 — We’ve seen the pace of these massive, disruptive revolutions — upheavals in business cycles — go from, you know, centuries to decades to years. And to the leadership — not only in the tech companies that I cover, but in their customers — has to be one where, you know, the enemy here is time. There’s no chance to sit back, play it safe, wait and see what my competitors do.

05:06 — They’ll get the first-mover status, but I’ll come in with a smarter approach. I just — I think those days are over. We’ve got a long article coming up about this on CloudWars.com that goes into more detail and offers lots of examples of what I’ve touched on here today.

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