Google’s Zachary Kuney on Monetisation, AI & Why Vietnam is a Global Growth Engine

Hello everyone. We are now at Think Apps by Google Apps Summit and we are here with Zack Cuni from Google Sales Site Monetization Team and we will definitely talk about some cool stuff. Hello.
Hello. Thanks for having me.
So like you know we were also earlier chatting about you know you guys were together Alip Pasha Rose and talking about you know lots of updates in mobile apps, gaming monetization. Want to start with something cool. What does it matter to constantly work on you know everything again and again on the monetization side sales side?
We have I think the most fun job in the business right so we get to work with developers around the world and help them make money and fund all of the amazing products that they build. So you know that role at Google for me is something I'm passionate about. I've been doing um sellside focus work for 15 years at Google and really just thinking about that as a way to fund the ecosystem and make sure that users eventually get great content no matter where they are in the world.

You know we always talk about the product or publishers but actually it's also really nice to hear from you you know behind the curtain who is working on it and actually we are now in just for you to know in Vietnam Ho Chi Min City we should talk about it more. How do you feel like um especially from sellside monetization and beyond uh what is your take in this region like uh not only it is booming but also challenges opportunities? Yeah, I mean I have the the privilege of spending a good amount of my time on the global business. Obviously Apac is a massive growth engine for the mobile apps business in general but even within that Vietnam is a growth engine within a growth engine. It's a pretty special place. You have a mix of young, super talented people, a major focus on tech, a government that's supporting that ecosystem, and I think a developer community that is maybe best described as like collaborative, hopeful, optimistic. So when you're in this market, you're usually just seeing tons of innovation using the latest and

greatest technology and sort of asking the question about like what am I going to do next versus how do I just focus on something that I've already done, right? So, it's a really fantastic place and certainly I think is having a positive influence outside of just this market, right? And impacts even globally. There's a lot I think the developer community could learn from Vietnamese developers.
And how do you leverage it to APAC overall? Would you say the same or
I think every market in APAC is unique, right? It's a mix of a lot of different things. I wouldn't sort of generalize it as as one thing. I do feel that in general you could say that Apac is is a hub of innovation, right? So when our product teams think about like what do we build next? What's the next format? What's the next way that AI will be utilized to create amazing mobile app user experiences, this is definitely a place you have to pay attention and also acknowledging that each specific sub region within APAC has something unique to offer, right? Like being in Japan is different than Korea than Vietnam, right? So yeah. And then same goes for

like China, India. Yeah.
Then let's take a quick look from the Google side like uh especially considering what even we mention here. Uh what is your take for Vietnamese developers both meet high level and also new studios. So like from Google side like you know about the connection support and what is for example even unique from this event from your sales side monetization for Vietnamese mobile game.
Yeah. So, I think what's unique about this event um compared to a lot of events I go to is Google's bringing all of our cross functional teams together um who interact with the developers and trying to give developers a more cohesive experience working with us as a company. You know, when you think about what Google's all about in general is scale, right? Bring amazing products to billions of users around the world. And by us having all of these experts here together to help developers, maybe, you know, some of them will say, "Hey, how do I take my business and scale beyond Vietnam?" Yeah. Yeah. And whether it's cloud and infrastructure or you know ad buying tools or sellside monetization or

the ways that you can leverage Play Console and Play Store to like reach billions of new users. I think bringing all that together creates a more simple story that we can really help customers and focus on letting them thrive and build a business while taking some of the complexity out of it.
Let's even leverage it a bit more. You know the famous word tool that is guess what AI. I'm also curious about your take on AI specifically for this region which is coming together with challenges and opportunities.
Yeah, I mean well within the specific context, you know, mobile app development, monetization, user acquisition, right? Like the big challenge is that there's so much data like it's not like a challenge of not having enough data. It's figuring out how to take the massive amount of data that these developers have and turn it into insights and allow them to turn it into actions and hopefully automate as much of that as possible to let developers focus on what they really want to be doing which is building amazing apps, right? And so whether it's, you know, UA tools, monetization tools, analytics tools, taking the heavy lifting off and making so even if you're

a small developer, it's almost like you have like a data scientist sitting in front of you at all times. So I think that is very a very relevant use of AI and helping partners run their businesses more effectively. And even I'm also curious about like what will be even next in this AI side because we hear like lots of automations as you mentioned on different levels even I like was chatting with lots of developers we automated this now even when we don't spend much time like what is even next
it's it's hard to say I mean because there's different there's different applications of it you know simplify workflows uh automate creatives or characters or then building experiences within the mobile apps that allow users to do unique things leveraging AI um there's There's also the idea that like all of a sudden, you know, your experience as a user and these agentic experiences maybe take you across unique experiences in various different apps, right? It could be gaming, non-gaming. So, I think it's a hard it's a hard question to answer. I think, you know, one of the things that, you know, and I might be misquing, but like I think Sundar CEO CEO said it like this is as

bad as this is going to get. Like it's so good, [laughter] but it's literally as bad as it's ever going to be. So that tells you if you fast forward two, three, four years like the sky's is the limit in terms of what I think AI will allow everyone in the world to do.
I actually have heard in one podcast the entry level has never been lower. The barrier for the success has never been this higher. So like literally we are talking about AI in between. And like from this angle uh what would be your advices for new developers both from Vietnamese side and also global especially I think you don't have enough social energy to talk to 800 people separately. So what would you say?
Um I think the the advice that I would give is probably advice that I'd give myself right is that like investing in learning investing in staying up to speed on the latest technology the latest applications of the technology I think is important. like we're all, you know, good at what we do today in some capacity and it's easy to maybe get into a routine and keep doing things the way

that you've done them for years. I think this is an opportunity for all of us to really challenge um all of that and say, "Hey, how could I do this five times faster? How could I remove this work that I don't like doing from my routine in general and what would I do with that time and how could I use these awesome tools to do some incredible stuff?" So, that's probably, you know, advice I, like I said, I give everybody, I give myself.
That sounds really good. Thanks a lot. We were with Zach. Uh, feel free to reach out to him. Thanks, Google.
Yeah, thank you.