Google hosted its flagship Cloud Next event April 9-11, 2025, in Las Vegas, utilizing some of The Strip’s most iconic venues, including the Mandalay Bay Convention Center and Sphere. This year’s event welcomed 30,000 developers, IT professionals, business leaders and Google Cloud experts, making it the largest of Google’s annual events. (The latest Google I/O developer conference, for reference, had an estimated 5,000 attendees.)
The three-day Cloud Next is nothing short of headline grabbing, as it promises a slew of new product announcements—and is sure to always sprinkle in surprises—each year. It’s safe to say the 2025 iteration delivered once again.
Here are five highlights from Google Cloud Next 2025 that caught Vendelux’s eye:
1. The Wizard of Oz Sphere experience
At the Cloud Next kickoff reception at Las Vegas’ iconic Sphere, the tech giant announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with the venue—plus Magnopus and Warner Brothers—to reconceptualize The Wizard of Oz using artificial intelligence. The modern take on the classic film will enhance its resolution, extend backgrounds across the Sphere’s 360-degree screens and will digitally recreate existing characters who would otherwise not appear on the same screen.
For instance, in the scene where the Cowardly Lion first tries to pounce on Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Man, the camera pans back and forth between Scarecrow and Tin Man, with cuts to Dorothy hiding behind a tree in the distance. The experience at Sphere called for keeping all these elements together, in hyper-realistic detail, per Google’s blog post on the remake.
It’s just one of many examples of the AI-induced changes Google is making to the film which, when it debuts at the Sphere on August 28, 2025, will be known as The Wizard of Oz at Sphere.
Google called the endeavor an “epic undertaking of creativity and technology.” And at Google Cloud Next, it was only fitting that attendees in the venue’s 17,600-seat spherical space were treated to a snippet of the film on the 160,000-square-foot screen.
The news was perhaps the buzziest of all of Google Cloud Next 2025, with outlets pointing out that the Google-Sphere partnership is a glimpse of AI’s implications on the larger entertainment industry.
2. Product announcements…229 to be exact
Across more than 10 keynotes and spotlights and 700 sessions, Google made 229 announcements at its 2025 Cloud Next—slightly up from the 218 announcements made at the 2024 event.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, AI took center stage, and a host of announcements included advancements to Google’s largest, most advanced AI model, Gemini. (Gemini 2.5 Pro is now available in public preview in the Gemini app and the cost-efficient Gemini 2.5 Flash is coming soon.) Thus, it only makes sense that Google also shared at Cloud Next that it significantly upgraded its AI Hypercomputer architecture—since it’s the engine driving its AI—so that it’s more intelligent per dollar.
In addition, Google introduced a seventh-generation Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), which are designed to accelerate large-scale AI inference (when a model can make predictions and decisions based on the data it’s been trained on), dubbed Ironwood TPUs. The new TPUs promise a 10-times performance leap.
Cloud Next attendees were also treated to a preview launch of the text-to-music AI model Lyria alongside the announcement of major upgrades to its existing tools designed to streamline creative workflows and reduce production time.
And to keep everything secure, Google Unified Security debuted at the event too. The solution integrates Google’s threat intelligence, security operations, cloud security and secure enterprise browsing capabilities—all powered by Gemini AI. Google said it designed the Unified Security tool to make Google part of every organization’s security team, with the help of Gemini-driven security agents and a malware analysis agent.
3. Google Cloud Showcase
More than 250 sponsoring partners were part of Google’s expo show, known as the Google Cloud Showcase, which took over the Mandalay Bay Convention Center’s 2.1 million square feet. In such a large space, it only makes sense that Google breaks up the Showcase into different hubs (such as the Security and Startup Hubs) and zones (there was a Coding Challenge Zone) with theaters and breakout rooms peppered throughout.
The Developer Community Hub was arguably the most immersive space on the show floor, with Learning Pods that covered topics like building agents, applying AI to real-time data and ensuring security. A tech lab within the hub called “Makerspace” encouraged developers to roll up their sleeves and follow “recipe cards” that assisted in sampling Google’s latest tools. And a nearby Agent Builder Bar facilitated (as its name suggests) attendees as they designed their own AI agent.
Meanwhile, at the Customer Theater, leaders from Google customers like Aritzia, McDonald’s and Deutsche Bank participated in 20-minute “Lighting Talks” where they shared real-world experiences, challenges and triumphs.
4. Leveled-up live performances
On April 10, Google hosted “Next at Night,” a concert at Allegiant Stadium featuring a headlining performance from The Killers alongside special appearances from Wyclef Jean and Tate Renner.
This year’s star-studded concert lineup came after Cloud Next 2024’s musical performances (Kings of Leon and DJ Pee Wee, aka Anderson .Paak) were described as “the most epic show for any Google event in recent memory.” Google had to keep the caliber of performers up once again, especially given competing industry events like Salesforce’s Dreamforce, which has boasted headliners like Elton John, Bruno Bars, Imagine Dragons and Red Hot Chili Peppers, just to name a few, over the years.
5. Specialized programming for leaders and executives
Exclusive events within the larger Google Cloud Next event were available for senior executives and industry leaders. Specialized programming included the “Leaders Circle,” which had its own two-day agenda ahead of the main event, April 7-8, at Las Vegas’ Four Seasons Hotel. It consisted of a welcome reception and day of specialized live sessions. Google didn’t explicitly divulge what specific criteria landed an attendee in the Leaders Circle, though a publicly listed agenda noted celeb guests like journalist Katie Couric and New York Times best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell alongside Google insiders like Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian as well as Google and Alphabet president and chief investment officer Ruth Porat.
Leaders Circle attendees were also granted VIP seating at Google Cloud’s Sphere event, plus had access to the only other specialized agenda: the “Executive Track.” Criteria for this exclusive programming was as vague as its Leaders Circle counterpart, though Google billed it as a gathering of “executive peers and industry luminaries to explore strategies, opportunities and AI technologies you can harness for this new era of business.”
The Executive Track’s agenda took place at Mandalay Bay across the main event, April 9-11, and included specialized breakout sessions, AI consultations and workshops with Google leaders, plus provided access to a dedicated Executive Lounge on the expo floor.
