Cloud Opportunities, January 2025: Barcelona’s ICE, Cloud Savings, and the Rise of Agentic AI

We hope you enjoyed a refreshing holiday break and are now recharged to tackle any cloud challenge that comes your way. Over here, we’ve been busy with several exciting projects, and while we can’t wait to share more details soon, we’d like to bring you up to speed on the latest news from our community and the broader cloud ecosystem.

January Highlights

In January, we had the pleasure of participating in ICE - the world’s largest international gaming conference that took place in warmer Barcelona. It was an honor to stand alongside industry leaders from around the globe as well as legendary Bulgarian Ballon d’Or winner, Hristo Stoichkov. In 2025, cloud technology is more essential than ever for the gaming industry, enabling companies to scale seamlessly during massive multiplayer events by ensuring that systems can handle sudden surges in demand while keeping costs in check.

On a similar note, we also recently published a case study demonstrating how cloud technology can dramatically reduce infrastructure expenses. In it, we detail how Global Infra Tech managed to cut its cloud costs by 40%. As Kristiyan Lozanov , Chief Operating Officer at Global Infra Tech, explains, their migration to GCP with our support was a game-changer - optimizing infrastructure, enhancing security, and maintaining scalability in an increasingly competitive field.

Upcoming Events

Looking ahead, on February 13, we’ll be joining Turning Tides: Launching #BreakingGrounds 2025 - the kick-off event of the year. This gathering at the InterContinental Hotel Sofia brings together Bulgaria’s innovation ecosystem to showcase the progress of #BreakingGrounds , featuring a panel discussion on cross-industry innovation, the unveiling of a new platform, and valuable networking opportunities for startups and scale-ups on a global scale.

Additionally, during the Startup Bulgaria conference (Scale-up Edition), our CTO, Aleksandar A. , will join Irina Verlan, MBA n, CEE Field Marketing Manager at Google Cloud, for a fireside chat. They will explore how cloud technology empowers scale-ups to evolve into global industry leaders.

AI Trends for 2025

This month’s educational tips take a closer look at emerging AI trends. Generative AI has already redefined content creation by producing text, images, music, and code, but it still relies on human input to set context and goals. Enter Agentic AI - a new phase where technology goes a step further by executing tasks independently, making decisions, and driving autonomous action.

A great example of this evolution is Looker’s Conversational Analytics. By allowing users to ask questions in everyday language, it turns data into actionable insights with remarkable ease. Peter Bailis, VP of Engineering at Google Cloud, captured this transformation by emphasizing the perennial business questions - what happened, why it happened, and what’s next - and how this tool makes obtaining those answers less painful.

The AI evolution doesn’t stop at data analytics. The newly launched Google Agentspace is empowering business analysts to uncover industry trends and create data-driven presentations. Meanwhile, HR teams are streamlining onboarding, software engineers are fixing bugs more efficiently, and marketers are refining their strategies with richer performance insights. These advances are supported by multi-language capabilities that make expertise accessible worldwide.

Looking ahead, Vertical AI Agents are set to play a key role in 2025 by providing purpose-built tools for specific tasks. These specialized solutions excel at automating functions—whether it’s customer support, payroll management, or medical billing—by harnessing deep domain knowledge to streamline processes, reduce repetitive work, and scale operations without requiring a proportional increase in headcount.

We hope this edition provided valuable insights. Stay tuned for more updates and in-depth analyses in the coming months!