Active Assist bundles Google’s AI-powered recommenders and analysis tools to surface optimization opportunities in your Google Cloud environment.
What is Active Assist?
Active Assist is the umbrella term for a portfolio of recommenders and analysis tools within the Google Cloud Recommender framework. These tools continuously analyze your resource usage and deliver concrete, actionable recommendations directly in the Active Assist dashboard of the Cloud Console.
Recommendations are organized into several value categories, including cost, security, performance, reliability, manageability, and sustainability. Each recommendation includes a description of the identified optimization opportunity, the recommended action, and the expected benefit.
Core Features
- Multiple specialized recommenders covering different GCP services and optimization areas
- Central dashboard with an overview of active recommendations by value category
- Automatic detection of unused or oversized resources
- Security and IAM policy insights based on best practices
- Recommendations can be retrieved and applied via Cloud Console, gcloud CLI, or REST API
Typical Use Cases
Cost Optimization: Active Assist identifies unused VMs, oversized disks, unassigned IP addresses, and provides guidance on committed use discounts based on your usage profile.
Security Improvement: The recommenders detect overly broad IAM permissions, risky firewall rules, and other security risks, and suggest specific corrections.
Performance and Reliability Tuning: Recommendations on VM types, network configurations, and storage options improve application performance and operational stability.
Benefits
- Free and usable without additional configuration
- Data-driven recommendations across multiple optimization dimensions
- Seamless integration with Cloud Console and CLI
- API for automation and integration into CI/CD pipelines
Integration with innFactory
As a certified Google Cloud partner, innFactory supports you with Active Assist: evaluating and prioritizing recommendations, automation via the Recommender API, FinOps strategies, and continuous cost optimization.
Contact us for consultation on Active Assist and Google Cloud optimization.
Available Tiers & Options
Standard
- Available for free
- Automatic recommendations
- Integration with Cloud Console
- Coverage of many GCP services
- Recommendations sometimes require manual implementation
- Learning phase for new resources
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Active Assist?
Active Assist is the umbrella term for Google's portfolio of recommenders and analysis tools within the Recommender framework that surface optimization opportunities in your Google Cloud environment. Recommendations are based on usage patterns, machine learning, and Google best practices, spanning multiple optimization areas.
What types of recommendations does Active Assist provide?
The recommenders provide recommendations across several value categories, including cost, security, performance, reliability, manageability, and sustainability. Examples include VM rightsizing, detection of unused resources, IAM policy insights, and committed use discount guidance.
What does Active Assist cost?
Active Assist itself is free and included in the Google Cloud Console. There are no additional fees for the recommendations; only implementing a recommendation may lead to resource changes that are billed as usual.
How reliable are the recommendations?
Recommendations are based on historical usage data and improve the longer a resource has been observed. For new resources, the system first needs a learning phase before precise recommendations become available.
Can I implement recommendations automatically?
Yes, the Recommender API lets you retrieve, apply, or dismiss recommendations programmatically. Some recommendations can be applied automatically, while others require additional manual steps shown in the recommendation's detail panel.
Note: All product information on this page has been compiled with care, but is provided without guarantee and may be outdated or incomplete. Cloud services evolve rapidly — features, pricing, SLAs, and availability change frequently. Authoritative and up-to-date information can only be found on the official product page of Google Cloud (official documentation). This page does not represent an offer by Google Cloud.
