Google is expanding its AI presence in the UK market, hosting a splashy launch event there for Agentspace. Google in December launched Agentspace, an AI agent hub that makes it easy for enterprises to build, manage and deploy custom agents using Gemini. The gathering was hosted by Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian and included participation by local customers BT Group and advertising powerhouse WPP. Google invited UK businesses to store cloud data locally using its $1 billion data center, opening there this year. The company also promoted its new Chirp 3 audio generator, which offers HD voice synthesis.

TechCrunch calls UK data residency “a key detail for organizations that are wary of hosting data outside of their own control.” Google is making Agentspace available there in Q2.

“Agentspace unlocks enterprise expertise for employees with agents that bring together Gemini’s advanced reasoning, Google-quality search, and enterprise data, regardless of where it’s hosted,” Google explains in a press release.

Under Agentspace, access to web searches and company data — including from Google apps — is accessible in one place, even allowing third parties like Confluence Technologies and automated workflow company ServiceNow “within a multi-model search agent, designed to help answer complex questions and boost productivity,” TechRadar reports.

“Agentic” is described by TechCrunch as “the new code word for how enterprises will practically start adopting AI — the pitch being that AI agents can be built both to help people do their work faster, and to interface better with customers.”

In addition, Google is providing more financial incentives for AI startups that want to work with the company, “awarding those joining its new UK accelerator up to £280,000 in Google Cloud credits plus expanded AI skills training,” notes TechCrunch.

Google also took the opportunity to push its Chirp 3 audio generator, which enables users to create “instant custom voices” using their own training data. There is a text-to-speech feature that works with a library of hundreds of AI voices in 31 languages. “Due to safety considerations,” access to Chirp’s “voice cloning” feature is restricted to allow-listed users, Google says.

Chirp 3 will be available starting next week via Google’s Vertex AI platform.

At the event, “Hassabis, who founded DeepMind in London in 2010 and sold it to Google four years later, said Britain’s top universities and talent pool put it at technology’s cutting edge,” urging the country to maintain global ambition for AI’s economic rewards as well as how the technology is deployed, Reuters reports.