Google's agent platform consolidated in 2026 into Gemini Enterprise, described on the Google Cloud blog as "one platform for agent development, orchestration, and governance." The underlying pieces (Agent Development Kit, Agent Engine, Agent Sandbox on GKE, Agent Executor) are still active. If you are on Google Cloud and using Gemini as your primary model, this is the native agent path.
Google's agent story has multiple moving parts. The Gemini Enterprise platform is the umbrella for agent development, orchestration, and governance on Google Cloud. Below that sit specific products:
Google was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for AI Application Development Platforms, signaling that the agent platform has reached enterprise credibility.
Vertex AI Agent Builder and Gemini Enterprise are billed through Google Cloud usage-based pricing. You pay for compute (Agent Engine, GKE if you use the sandbox), model inference (Gemini Pro, Flash), and any storage or networking. The ADK SDK itself is free. Specific tiers shift over time; check Google Cloud's Agent Builder page for current rates.
| Axis | Vertex AI Agent Builder | Bedrock AgentCore | Azure AI Foundry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud | Google Cloud | AWS | Azure |
| First-party SDK | ADK | Strands SDK + others | Microsoft Agent Framework |
| Primary model | Gemini family | Claude, Nova, others | OpenAI, Anthropic, others |
| Framework flexibility | ADK, LangChain, custom | LangChain, OpenAI, Claude, custom | MS Agent Framework, LangChain |
| Best for | Google Cloud + Gemini stacks | AWS-native enterprises | Microsoft 365 + Azure stacks |
Pros:
Cons:
For SellerShorts tool builders targeting Amazon sellers, Vertex AI is rarely the natural pick. Most Amazon sellers do not have a Google Cloud account, and the AWS path (Bedrock AgentCore + Anthropic Claude) is closer to where the Amazon ecosystem lives. Vertex AI is the right answer for SellerShorts tool builders whose buyers are large enterprises on Google Cloud with Gemini as the corporate-approved LLM.
You need a Google Cloud account. Start with ADK (free SDK) and graduate to managed Agent Engine as you scale.
Building agents for Amazon? See the Amazon AI hub.
Google consolidated its agent platform in 2026 into Gemini Enterprise, described on the Google Cloud blog as 'one platform for agent development, orchestration, and governance.' The underlying components include the Agent Development Kit (ADK), Agent Engine, Agent Sandbox on GKE, and Agent Executor (Google's distributed Agent Runtime).
ADK is Google's open-source SDK for building agents. It sits in the same category as LangChain or OpenAI Agents SDK and integrates natively with Vertex AI services (Gemini, RAG, retrieval, evaluation). The framework is the recommended starting point for new agent work on Google Cloud.
Pick Vertex if your team is on Google Cloud and uses Gemini as the primary model. Pick AgentCore if you are on AWS and want to bring multiple frameworks (LangChain, OpenAI SDK, Claude SDK) into one runtime. Both are framework-agnostic on paper; Vertex leans most natural with Gemini and ADK.
Yes. Google was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for AI Application Development Platforms. Recent product launches include Agent Executor, Agent Sandbox on GKE (Agent Substrate), Data Agent Kit for IDE/CLI-based agent development, and AI Edge Portal for on-device LLM optimization.