Vodafone and Google have announced a 10-year strategic expansion of their existing partnership to bring new services, devices, and TV experiences to millions of Vodafone’s customers across Europe and Africa, supported by Google Cloud and Google’s Gemini models.

The agreement will bring storage, security, and AI assistance to Vodafone’s customers in 15 countries, a statement said on Tuesday.

This will also get to its partners in an additional 45 markets worldwide, while Google will use Vodafone’s fixed and mobile connectivity services to improve workforce productivity.

Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group chief executive, said: “Together, Vodafone and Google will put new AI-powered content and devices into the hands of millions of more consumers. 

“Using these services, our customers can discover new ways to learn, create and communicate, as well as consume TV, on a scale we haven’t seen before.”

“Our expanded partnership with Vodafone will help bring our most advanced AI products and services, including our Gemini models, to more people across Europe and Africa,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. “I’m excited to see how Vodafone’s consumers, small businesses and governments, will use generative AI and Google Cloud to transform the way they work and access information.”

A key focus of the Vodafone and Google partnership is to help consumers take advantage of the latest hardware and digital technologies, including AI and cloud-based applications. 

Vodafone and Google will work together to improve and expand the range of products and services available in stores and online, supported with a refreshed customer experience rooted in the benefits of AI. 

Google and Vodafone are working towards enabling Vodafone to offer YouTube subscription-based products and Google One subscription plans, such as storage plans and AI Premium plans to consumers, in addition to offering a range of Pixel and other Android devices.

Vodafone and Google will work towards enhancing Vodafone TV, which is powered by Android TV, using Google Cloud’s advanced gen AI capabilities to provide additional content discovery features, rewards, and offers, as well as content monetisation with Google Ad Manager to deliver a better ads experience. 

The teams are also exploring a more deeply-integrated YouTube experience across Vodafone TV devices.

Vodafone and Google Cloud already have a strong track record of collaboration. 

The companies have worked together to create a data repository (data lake) that houses Vodafone’s data and its existing AI and data analytics services on Google Cloud to ensure maximum security and adherence to legal requirements. 

With the expanded partnership, Vodafone will use Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s enterprise-ready AI platform, to build, deploy, and scale machine learning models and AI applications powered by Google’s Gemini models. 

This will help increase the speed and ease with which Vodafone’s operating companies in multiple countries can innovate and launch new products.

Through this partnership, Vodafone aims to offer its business customers enhanced cyber protection with its own soon-to-be-developed cloud-native cybersecurity solution, utilising Google Cloud’s Security Operations platform. 

It will provide security incident and event management, as well as the latest software-based protection tools. 

Vodafone will also use Google Cloud’s Security Operations platform when developing certain products and services to further ensure that they are secure by design to help keep customers safe online.

Both companies intend to jointly promote the use of universal industry standards in areas such as online safety, responsible AI development, network performance, and interoperability to drive economies of scale in industrial efficiency, boost innovation, and improve public services at scale. 

Through this partnership, Vodafone will put AI-powered cloud, content, and connectivity into the hands of more people.