The AI agent race will be won by companies that build the right data foundation

The agentic AI boom has an inconvenient truth: Without a solid data foundation, the revolution stops before it starts.

Conversations surrounding an emergent agent control plane signal that agentic AI is maturing — but the enterprises best positioned to capitalize are those that did the unglamorous data work years before the hype arrived. That divide between prepared and unprepared organizations is sharpening in real time, according to Ben Kessler (pictured, right), chief executive officer of 66degrees LLC, a Google Cloud-focused AI and data solutions firm that earned the 2026 Google Cloud LLC Partner of the Year Award for AI.

“As these advances of data technology and these advances of AI technology and even agentic [technology emerges], it’s just reinforced for me and for us as a business that there’s such a need — as there’s a need for people to eat every day — for people to learn how to adopt technology and learn how to take this technology and drive and create differences for their business,” Kessler said. “The agentic enterprise is all about the ‘how’ changes. It allows us to actually deliver a little bit faster or a little bit more of a certain outcome.”

Kessler and Brendan Bonthuis (left), chief information officer of Gordon Food Service Inc., the largest family-operated food distributor in North America, spoke with John Furrier and co-host Alison Kosik at Google Cloud Next, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how the partnership between 66degrees and Gordon Food Service is translating years of infrastructure investment into a practical data foundation to build the agentic enterprise. (* Disclosure below.)

Data foundation key to agentic enterprise readiness

For organizations navigating the agentic enterprise, the absence of established playbooks makes trusted partnerships more valuable than ever. No enterprise today has a decade of agentic AI experience to draw from, and that novelty changes how companies need to approach the journey, Bonthuis noted.

“This feels different because no one has 10 years of experience doing this,” he said. “Having a partner that can walk with you … to figure out what is the plan and how do we approach it and learn together — that’s been really important as we go on that journey.”

The data foundation that makes that journey possible at Gordon Food Service was built well before agentic AI became a mainstream conversation. Working with 66degrees, the company prioritized centralizing its data on the Google Cloud Platform and ensuring it was accessible across multiple formats — work that is now paying dividends, according to Bonthuis.

“We built out a data platform, so we would prioritize the ability to quickly ingest data across a bunch of different formats,” Bonthuis said. “Having your data in one spot and having it accessible within GCP — we felt like it was a good idea years ago and we worked really hard on that with these guys and we’re really glad it’s there now. It certainly doesn’t guarantee success, but it’s a really important step.”

The broader opportunity now is one of workforce amplification rather than displacement, according to Kessler. Agents are allowing 66degrees’ own consultants to multiply their output. The same logic applies across its client base as the firm helps traditional enterprises adopt agentic systems with the accumulated context of prior deployments.

“What we’ve been able to do is empower our people with agents and with AI to eventually 10X their capacity,” Kessler said. “It’s not actually doing the same amount of work with fewer people. It’s actually figuring out how to take your workforce, apply agents and work with agents in order to make them more productive.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Google Cloud Next:

(* Disclosure: 66degrees sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither 66degrees nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE