At Google Cloud Next, AI agents were everywhere. But after my conversations with Ravi Malick and Ben Kus from Box, one thing became very clear.
The real challenge is no longer building AI. It is building AI systems enterprises can actually trust. That is what made the Box and Google Cloud conversations stand out from everything else happening at Next. #boxpartner
The Industry Is Moving From AI That Answers… To AI That Acts
For the last few years, most enterprise AI conversations focused on generation. Summaries, copilots, recommendations, chat experiences.
Now we are entering something very different.
Agentic AI.
Systems that can reason, take action, move across workflows, access enterprise content, and make decisions inside business processes.
And according to Ravi Malick, that changes the conversation entirely.
The biggest challenge enterprises face right now is not model capability. It is governance.
Who controls the agent?
What content can it access?
What actions can it take autonomously?
How are those actions tracked and audited?
These are not theoretical questions anymore.
Especially for a company like Box that manages highly sensitive enterprise content across industries.
Ravi explained that enterprises cannot think about AI agents the same way they thought about traditional AI systems. When systems move from generating responses to actually interacting with enterprise environments, security and trust become foundational.
That part of the AI conversation still does not get enough attention.
One word kept coming up during my conversation with Ben Kus.
Context.
Not just data.
Not just models.
Context.
Ben explained something that I think many enterprises are now realizing.
Most organizations already have enormous amounts of enterprise information. Contracts, documents, PDFs, videos, reports, internal knowledge, support tickets, spreadsheets.
But most of that information is static and disconnected.
AI agents only become useful when they understand the context around that content. When it comes to agents, Box is thinking about:
Who creates them?
How do they connect to other systems securely?
Maintaining permissions and access controls
How to keep a human in the loop
That is the direction Box is pushing toward.
Not simply storing enterprise content, but transforming enterprise content into usable context for AI systems.
And honestly, that feels like one of the biggest shifts happening in enterprise AI right now.
The partnership between Box and Google Cloud is now heavily focused on AI interoperability and enterprise-scale agent ecosystems.
From the announcement and conversations at Next, a few things stood out:
Box Agents are becoming part of broader interoperable AI ecosystems
Google Cloud is enabling infrastructure for governed enterprise AI workflows
Integrations with Vertex AI and Gemini are helping operationalize enterprise context
Enterprise content inside Box can now participate in larger agent workflows securely and with governance controls
Google is pushing heavily toward interoperable enterprise agents through concepts like Agent Marketplace and unified agent ecosystems
The important part here is interoperability.
Because enterprises are not going to run a single AI system.
They are going to run ecosystems of agents, models, workflows, and enterprise applications that need to work together securely.
That is the direction both Box and Google Cloud are clearly building toward.
The Bigger Shift Happening Right Now
One theme kept showing up throughout Google Cloud Next this year.
The industry is moving from AI experimentation to operationalization.
And that changes what matters.
Earlier, the focus was mostly on models.
Now the focus is shifting toward:
Governance
Interoperability
Enterprise context
Infrastructure
Security
Trust
That is why these conversations with Box stood out.
Because they were not focused on hype.
They were focused on what enterprises actually need to make AI usable in production.
My Biggest Takeaway
Most companies are still asking:
“What AI model should we use?”
But after these conversations, I think the better question is:
“How do we build AI systems people can trust?”
Because capability is no longer the hard part.
Trust is.
Watch the Interviews
Ravi Malick (CIO, Box)
Watch here
Ben Kus (CTO, Box)
Watch here
Recommended Reading
This goes deeper into how Box and Google Cloud are thinking about secure AI agents, enterprise content, and interoperability across systems.
10x the context. Half the time.
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Best,
Ravit Jain
Founder & Host of The Ravit Show
