The TL;DR #
Picture a coffee company that grows its own beans, roasts them, runs the cafés, and owns the busiest streets in town. That’s what Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are each trying to become in AI.
- The four layers: chips (the beans), the models (the roast), the platform you build and govern agents on (the cafés), and distribution that puts agents in front of users (the foot traffic).
- What changed: a few years ago each company owned a layer or two and rented the rest. Now all three want the whole chain.
- Google’s lead: chips, where its TPUs have a decade head start, and models (Gemini 3, plus it funds and hosts a big chunk of Anthropic).
- Google’s gap: distribution. Microsoft walks agents into the Office apps 90% of the Fortune 500 already use, while Google’s Gmail and Workspace reach is narrower and Amazon can barely reach a non-developer.
- The twist: Google has the most to lose. For Microsoft and Amazon, AI is extra revenue. For Google, every agent answer is a search that doesn’t happen.
The full-stack cloud bet, and how it differs from Microsoft and AWS #
At Cloud Next, its big annual keynote, Google rolled out the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, replacing Vertex AI, which had been its AI platform since 2023.(1) The rename is the tell: Google wants the whole stack, from the chips up to the apps that put agents in front of every employee. As Thomas Kurian, who runs Google Cloud, put it on stage: competitors hand you the pieces, Google hands you the platform.
Microsoft and Amazon are making the same bet. Where they differ is which layer each one owns, so let’s go layer by layer.
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The four-layer AI Stack #
Every cloud AI business stacks into four layers. At the bottom, silicon: the chips that run AI workloads, and the data centers and power that keep them running. Above silicon, the models: the LLMs that turn a user request into an answer or an action. Above the models, the platform where you build, run, and govern AI application. At the top, distribution: the channels that put AI in front of users.
A few years back, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon each owned a layer or two and rented the rest. Now they are all going for the whole stack.