# Verizon touts latest Google Cloud AI stack use > Source: > Published: 2026-08-24 16:22:00+00:00 Verizon and Google Cloud have expanded their long-running work with the telecom giant, touting deployment of the hyperscaler’s full-stack AI platform toward updating its customer experience and network control. Verizon is using Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience platform as the basis for an “AI-first toolbox” for customers. That platform is handling “the majority of its inbound consumer calls and chats a month, freeing customer care representatives to dedicate their focus to complex, high-touch customer needs.” Verizon further explained that these efforts are using the Google platform for agent orchestration and “employee productivity to improve the operating model across their core business functions.” The carrier is also using Google Cloud’s data and AI products to update its marketing platforms, including automation of content creation and campaign orchestration in support of customer engagement, sales, and retention efforts. These moves come on the heels of recent [reports that Verizon was slashing](https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/verizon-to-slash-thousands-of-corporate-retail-jobs/) around 500 corporate jobs as part of a restructuring and that 274 corporate-owned stores are being sold, which in total will impact around 3,000 employees. The report indicated that the carrier informed employees in a note that it was working with retail franchise owners that currently operate 5,000 outlets "to elevate the experience in every one of their locations because we know how important they are to our overall customer experience." A Verizon spokesperson in an email confirmed the *Reuters* numbers, adding that the corporate-owned stores would be "transitioning" to "franchise locations," and "about 70%" of those retail locations typically "accept positions at the new franchise locations." Those cuts were labeled as "part of our ongoing transformation" and the latest under CEO Dan Schulman who in just under a year has implemented [significant AI-backed cost-cutting programs](https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/verizons-13000-plus-job-cuts-will-be-quick-and-cost-nearly-2b/) across the carrier. This includes an initial move to slash 13,000 jobs, which was completed at the end of Verizon’s fiscal first quarter of this year and came with a $2 billion price tag, and a more recent [round of cuts](https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/verizon-continues-mass-layoffs-with-hundreds-more-jobs-on-the-chopping-block/). “We have barely scratched the surface of how AI-powered innovation can transform our customer experience,” Schulman said after he took over leadership at Verizon late last year. “I intend to use AI as a key tool to simplify offers, improve the customer experience, and reduce churn through smart, consistent, and more personalized marketing and offers, and we will leverage AI throughout the company to make it easier for our employees to delight our customers and to dramatically improve service while reducing costs.” ## AI for the network Verizon is also using Google Cloud as the data platform for an autonomous network intelligence framework to predict and resolve network anomalies. This follows insight from Verizon CTO Yago Tenorio who recently told *SDxCentral* that the carrier closed 70 million “loops” last year. “That's without any human intervention,” Tenorio explained. “So the human may be supervising, and for sure the human has written the script, but that's the first step into autonomy. If it wasn't for the infrastructure, our own private cloud, and the skills, and the first steps that we took on automation, I don't think we would be speaking about autonomy, because I don't think there is a way that you can skip that phase.” Tenorio explained that autonomy path accelerated this year with Verizon “rolling out Claude Code to literally everyone in technology, and that made everyone a software developer.” This has since expanded to greater use of platforms like Anthropic and Google’s Gemini. “What we're doing is to train an AI model ourselves on our own architecture and our own platform, so if you're going to do that, the ability to interface to your own systems and your own network through open and standard interface become essential,” Tenorio explained, added that this is also helped by the disaggregated architecture that allows for different models to be inserted in the process, including Claude code, Anthropic, and Gemini. “It's important that your platform is modular, so we can actually flag any LLM [large-language model],” Tenorio said. “We think, today, Gemini and Anthropic are particularly useful for this, but watching this space and the speed at which it’s changing, maybe like the computer model, in six months’ time there will be something else, so we need to be the platform that we own, and we control, and then we can plug a different language model without changing everything else.” The latest efforts continue [long-standing work between Verizon and Google](https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/verizon-grabs-google-to-broaden-multi-cloud-strategy/), including a [recently announced $1 billion-plus deal](https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/verizon-ceo-boasts-1b-google-dark-fiber-deal-is-tip-of-the-ai-opportunity-iceberg-quiet-on-latest-job-cuts/) for the carrier to provide dark fiber for connecting the hyperscaler’s data centers. That deal marked the first major win for Verizon under Schulman, who has [extensively boasted](https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/verizon-sees-fiber-expansion-limit-ai-revenue-opportunities/) about the carrier’s AI-related financial opportunities, which the executive quickly noted were one of many. “We have other deals that we expect to announce by year-end that, taken together, are expected to be worth multiple billions of dollars in revenue over the next several years,” Schulman said. “These are long-duration, high-quality, contracted revenue streams from some of the most demanding infrastructure customers in the world. We believe that this is just the beginning. The buildout of AI infrastructure across the United States is one of the largest capital cycles of our lifetime, and Verizon is uniquely positioned to participate in it.”