The best thing about Next 2026? The people.

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Google Cloud NEXT '26 Challenge Submission

This is a submission for the Google Cloud NEXT Writing Challenge

The opinions in this article are all mine. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

I usually write about AI Agents, A2A, and running MCP servers on toasters.

This article is different.

I rolled into Vegas on a random Sunday night in April.

On a wing and a prayer.

Or maybe I was just living dangerously and ready to be seduced by the wiles of Sin City once again.

Google Next has outgrown Moscone - even a decent sized city like San Francisco would be have been crushed under the sheer weight of the Cloud masses- so Vegas it was.

I have been attending Google Cloud Next since the early days in San Francisco. I remember silently gawking at Vint Cerf in person standing 2 feet above everybody else in the Moscone lobby- wearing a pristine wool suit and realizing that most of the surrounding people had no idea who he was.

Thankfully I never summoned the courage to talk to him.

Small talk on routing protocols? Not sure where to start.

This year's Google Cloud Next was different.

Very different.

It was all about the people along the way.

So I found myself rolling into some Cantina at a Vegas hotel that looks like it has seen better days on a random Sunday night in April and syncing up with my first batch of GDEs (Google Developer Experts)- both old and new.

You would think with all that technical prowess at the table, the conversation would revolve around context management or token optimization strategies- but somehow the discussion ended up around beekeeping and chicken coops.

Monday was a full day of GDE programming - putting names to faces and meeting people in person that I have only talked with virtually.

I think most people were somewhat relieved that I was an actual human and not some automated writing bot - with the sheer amount of content that I have been producing.

I was really just there for the swag and did score a nice jacket - so no complaints.

Tuesday featured more sessions with our GDE colleagues from across the world. There is no cookie cutter definition of what makes a GDE special but you know it when you see it. We were able to throw down our opinions good or bad and give some candid feedback to some of the Google powers that be at several round-tables.

I never did get a good answer as to why there are two official end points serving out similar but slightly different models, but I digress.

I kicked off the night at a Google Canada party at Caesar's.
I never miss an opportunity to share my opinions on real Kraft dinner, Poutine, and Tim Hortons. (Spicy, Vegetarian, and Double-Double - in sequential order)

I ended up at the House of Kube with a couple of Australians- a GDE in Connecticut and a random ex-AWS manager. I will check back in a few years to see if that pizza place the AWS guy was pitching ever materializes.

At least his AI bots wrote a great business plan!

No actual pods, containers, or YAML materialized at the House of Kube - but the food trucks weren't bad.

Perhaps the highlight of the night was the wacky pitch for some totally bonkers Crypto for Tokens platform from a gentleman that had more buzz words than I thought could be put together in one cohesive thought. I should have just told him I was there for the food trucks.

On second thought, strike the cohesive.

Wednesday
Keynotes and more Keynotes. The good thing is that I have decent storage on my phone as I think the phone's true purpose is to spam Linked In with Key Note content. Another GDE perk is the Blue lane - which is like a fast pass for privileged few.

The sheer crowds are not for the weak of heart.

I happily attended a Fellow GDE's lightning talk- who went all N*sync with the Timberlake architecture. Fortunately for everyone - no actual singing or dancing was involved.

I had submitted a speaking proposal around cross language A2A benchmarking months ago - but it was probably rejected for being too weird and not commercial enough.

Maybe efficiency really is not a priority? If I put my Tin foil hat on- less efficient agents == more tokens + CPU usage. The more cynical would even go as far as a demand pull strategy. I try not to read that far into it.

Not salty at all- it actually was interesting to write the dual MCP/A2A agent that orchestrated the benchmarks for me.

Thursday
More keynotes. One of the GDE perks is floor seating at Next Developer keynotes and I think I was row 5?

Great view and whoever writes Richard Seroter's script deserves an Oscar. If you check the transcript you will find that the content is extremely tight and well structured.

I can only aspire to be that witty.

The highlight for me in the sessions was a highly advanced LLM inference serving architecture session. I thought I could score some bonus points if I asked about MCP but ended up with some blank stares. You win some, you lose some.

I am surprised I managed to get this far without mentioning even more MCP.

And then came Next at Night.

I am too old to be a Benson Boon fan. I was there for Weezer - but I did hear some somersaults were part of the act from some people after the show.

There isn't any swag at these things but the food wasn't bad.

Friday
Happy to support another GDE- this one was right up my alley- Agent Skills and selfies. Gotta keep that Linked In feed saturated.

Sometimes the most interesting sessions come when you least expect it. The Looker GDE Pod met in person for the first time over lunch with representation from across the Globe and had meaningful open conversations.

I will be the first to admit my Looker prowess is marginal at best but I learned some new things over lunch.

My last session was a deep dive into the hardware topology of the Nvidia platform that is handling a lot of the OpenAI inference. It would not be out of place in a Star Trek episode.

I also managed to unload some unexpected swag- official Google Cloud security socks - which facilitated a double trade with some other GDEs.

So sitting in the Airport ruminating gets me back to the whole premise. It wasn't the latest technology announcement or the current Agent craze or the latest Ponzi scheme to transform cash into Tokens - it was the people and one-on-one time that made this Next unique.

AI may be coming for all our jobs but at least we- as humans can still have somewhat interesting conversions.

My only regret was not getting out my credit card for that whack-a-mole Crypto for Token platform. I am probably going to need all the Tokens I can get my hands on.

At least there is something to look forward to next year.