- Vodafone and Google today announced a 10-year strategic expansion of their existing partnership.
- The pair will work to bring new services, devices, and TV experiences to Vodafone’s customers across Europe and Africa.
- The new offerings will also be powered by Google Cloud and Google Gemini.
Google and Vodafone (the majority owner of Vodacom) have been working together for many years now, but with generative AI being a key focus for the former company of late, the pair have announced an extension of their 10-year strategic partnership, with genAI said to be a significant focus moving forward.
To that end, the pair confirmed that they will bring new services, devices, and TV experiences to Vodafone’s customers across Europe and Africa, supported by Google Cloud and Google’s Gemini models.
More specifically the agreement will bring storage, security, and AI assistance to Vodafone’s customers in 15 countries, as well as its partners in an additional 45 markets worldwide, while Google will use Vodafone’s fixed and mobile connectivity services to improve workforce productivity.
“Together, Vodafone and Google will put new AI-powered content and devices into the hands of millions of more consumers. Using these services, our customers can discover new ways to learn, create and communicate, as well as consume TV, on a scale we haven’t seen before,” explained Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group chief executive.
“Our expanded partnership with Vodafone will help bring our most advanced AI products and services, including our Gemini models, to more people across Europe and Africa. I’m excited to see how Vodafone’s consumers, small businesses and governments, will use generative AI and Google Cloud to transform the way they work and access information,” added Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet.
In future, we should see the partnership used to help consumers access the latest hardware and digital technologies, including AI and cloud-based applications. Vodafone and Google say they will work together to improve and expand the range of products and services available in stores and online, supported by a refreshed customer experience powered by AI.
“Google and Vodafone are working towards enabling Vodafone to offer YouTube subscription-based products and Google One subscription plans, such as storage plans and AI Premium plans to consumers, in addition to offering a range of Pixel and other Android devices,” a release shared with Hypertext highlighted.
In the latter half of that statement, it is clear whether South Africa will be included among the countries where Pixel devices will be made available, especially as many Android OEMs already operate locally.
Still, the potential prospect of getting official Pixel hardware in SA is an exciting one.
Looking at how AI will play a part, particularly in Vodafone’s ecosystem, the expanded partnership will see Vodafone use Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s enterprise-ready AI platform, to build, deploy, and scale machine learning models and AI applications powered by Google Gemini.
Furthermore Vodafone said it aims to offer its business customers enhanced cyber protection with its own soon-to-be-developed cloud-native cybersecurity solution, utilising Google Cloud’s Security Operations platform.
“Both companies intend to jointly promote the use of universal industry standards in areas such as online safety, responsible AI development, network performance, and interoperability to drive economies of scale in industrial efficiency, boost innovation, and improve public services at scale. Through this partnership, Vodafone will put AI-powered cloud, content, and connectivity into the hands of more people,” the release concluded.
