If you’re like most growing companies, your data is likely scattered across numerous platforms—like Slack, Salesforce, Jira, SharePoint, and many others. These silos are why information sometimes gets lost, work slows down, and your employees waste time where they shouldn’t.
Agentic AI is changing this. Google Cloud has two main solutions to help: Agent Builder and Agentspace. Both are powerful, but built for very different jobs. Which one do you need?
Let’s break down the difference to see.
Need a Custom AI Agent? Welcome to Agent Builder
Custom AI agents are smart digital assistants designed for highly specific, internal automation jobs. Agent Builder is where you create them—any of them, and as many as you want.
Need a bot that finds HR policies in a PDF? Or another one to file IT tickets? You name it—Agent Builder can build it.
But it doesn’t just build them. It can also connect them into powerful multi-agent systems that seamlessly link to your data, tools, and workflows.
Agent Builder Is Great For:
- Startups or SMBs that need to automate specific internal workflows.
- Teams with strong dev support that want deep control over their AI solutions.
- Focused domains (e.g. IT helpdesk, HR assistant, internal policy bot).
Agent Builder Pros:
- Complete control over agent behavior and logic.
- Ability to build specialized, multi-agent systems.
- Integration with any system using Open API or custom tools.
- Ideal for internal tools and specific-use assistants.
Limitations:
- Requires manual data connection and configuration.
- Scaling to a company-wide solution can involve managing numerous individual agents.
Agentspace: The AI Platform for Your Entire Company
Agentspace is different. It’s a super secure, enterprise-grade AI assistant that connects all of your company’s apps and tools with prebuilt connectors. This means employees only have to interact with one search window for any query they have.
You don’t build agents from scratch in Agentspace. But you can use out-of-the-box agents from the gallery or create your own with a no-code tool.
What Can Agentspace Do?
- Search and Synthesize: Users can ask questions like, “Who is the PM for Project Firehawk?” or “What was the client’s feedback on last quarter’s delivery?” and Agentspace will pull information from all connected systems to provide a comprehensive answer.
- Generate Content: It can generate content such as blog posts, executive summaries, marketing documents, or campaign images based on internal data and user prompts.
- Perform Research: A built-in Research Agent can search both internal documents and the web to create full reports with summaries and citations.
Agentspace Pros:
- No complex setup; it integrates directly with enterprise data.
- Unified access to Google tools and third-party platforms.
- Perfect for knowledge synthesis across teams.
- Supports generative Q&A, content creation, and actions like sending emails.
Limitations:
- Offers less customization than Agent Builder.
- Doesn’t build custom agents.
- Better suited for broad, organization-wide use rather than deep, function-specific automations.
Which One Do You Need?
The choice depends on your goals. Let’s look at an example. Your marketing team needs a competitive analysis of your product.
With Agent Builder:
You would need to build an agent and connect it to your data. This is a project.
With Agentspace:
You just ask, “What are our product differences compared to competitors?” It will pull info from Salesforce, product docs, and Slack. You get a detailed answer with sources. Want a new image for a pitch deck? Done.
Basically, Agent Builder is for when you need a custom tool for one specific job. Agentspace is for when you need a single AI that connects everything and helps everyone. Here’s a quick cheat sheet to help you decide:
Still not sure? At Zazmic, we help companies figure out which solution is right for them. Join our FREE AI Workshop! We’ll explore both Agent Builder and Agentspace, map your unique AI use cases, and build out actual POCs tailored for your goals, your team, and your industry.
