GenAI on Google Cloud

Preface

Let’s be honest—building a flashy generative AI prototype is the easy part. We’ve all been there: the excitement of a demo that works perfectly in controlled conditions, stakeholders leaning forward in their chairs, and that moment when someone says, “This is amazing! When can we roll it out?”

And then reality hits.

The four of us—Ayo, Lavi, Sarita, and Steph—have collectively spent thousands of hours helping organizations and developers navigate what comes after that exciting demo moment. We work across different teams at Google Cloud, but we kept encountering the same fundamental challenge regardless of industry or use case: the gap between a working prototype and a production-ready generative AI system is massive, complex, and filled with obstacles that aren’t obvious until you’re knee-deep in the journey.

During one of our regular knowledge-sharing sessions, we realized that while there are plenty of resources that teach how to build generative AI prototypes, there’s surprisingly little practical guidance on the critical path from prototype to production. We started compiling our notes, frameworks, and hard-earned lessons, initially just for ourselves and our teams.

“This could help a lot more people than just us,” became our mantra, and that’s how this book was born.

We’re not here to dazzle you with theoretical abstractions or rehash concepts you can find in a hundred blog posts. Instead, we’ve created the practical guide we wish we’d had—one that addresses the real ...