Google Cloud Platform is one of the avenues to cloud computing. You can use Google's data centers and Google's libraries to supercharge your business processes, software applications, and cloud development and management.

Here are 10 popular APIs that can help make you more effective and efficient:

1. Cloud Vision API

Through machine learning models, this API allows for understanding content within an image. You can analyze an image and extract content. The library comes loaded with label detection, explicit content detection, face detection, logo detection, landmark detection, and image attributes.

2. Cloud Natural Language API

Cloud Natural Language is exactly what it sounds like -- it's natural language technology that helps developers with things like sentiment analysis (e.g. whether a piece of written text has a generally positive or negative tone) through deep learning models. This can help build better user experiences and gauge sentiment about a product or service.

3. Cloud Speech API

Cloud Speech is speech recognition, allowing developers to easily integrate speech-to-text software into their applications. It's powered by machine learning, so it's more dynamic and reliable than old speech recognition software and supports over one hundred languages. Transcription can be done in real-time or can be done with an audio upload.

4. Kubernetes Engine API

The Kubernetes Engine is useful for developers making containerized applications. Kubernetes is an open source technology for container-based apps and with the Kubernetes Engine, it's simpler to integrate Kubernetes into Google Cloud Platform projects.

With Google's Kubernetes Engine API, you won't need to install or manage your Kubernetes clusters, you can do it easily and efficiently with a great deal of built-in functionality. You can even control your environment with a Kubernetes Engine dashboard within the Google Cloud Developer Console.

5. Dialog Flow API

Dialog Flow is a library you can use that helps you create natural conversational experiences or chatbots. Using machine learning, bots can understand what users are saying or typing and can formulate accurate and useful responses. The API comes with over thirty pre-built chatbot profiles in nearly twenty languages.

6. Cloud Translation API

The Google Cloud Translation API lets developers integrate Google Translate into their own websites and robust web apps with over 100 supported languages. Translation is fast and dynamic because it uses a deep learning framework called Neural Machine Translation. It's simple to integrate through REST API and can scale rapidly.

7. Cloud Machine Learning Engine

The Cloud Machine Learning Engine enables you to create and use machine learning models. The Machine Learning Engine allows developers to make better machine learning models and deploy them into production using TensorFlow.

8. Cloud Pub/Sub API

Cloud Pub/Sub allows for asynchronous messaging across applications. This API is built as a foundation for event-driven computing systems. It delivers data to Cloud Dataflow and BigQuery to help you better manage data. It helps lower code complexity and helps handle user requests. It's best for middleware applications.

9. Cloud Key Management Service (KMS) API

Google Cloud Key Management Service helps customers manage encrypted keys. Encryption key management means you can generate, use, rotate, and destroy encryption keys. You can keep millions of encryption keys that automatically rotate.

This API is integrated into IAM and Cloud Audit logging so you can get as granular as managing permissions on a single key and keep track of how that key is being used.

10. Zync Render API

Animation studios can use Google infrastructure to launch their creative works.

Add visual effects and animation rendering services to your Google Cloud project by enabling the Zync Render API. You can render your Maya, Houdini FX, Cinema 4D, 3ds Max, and Nuke projects on Google Cloud infrastructure.

Conclusion

Google is at the forefront of API development, machine learning, and cloud computing. Because of this, the Google Cloud Platform is the perfect place to begin searching for a suite of software services.

Cloud computing is all the rage and APIs that embolden the cloud help to maintain the hype. Robust, flexible, and reliable libraries are hard to come by. Thankfully, there's a great deal of Google Cloud APIs at the ready. You can use the above libraries to make your software, platforms, or business processes more efficacious.

About the Author

Greg Robinson is a tech entrepreneur with interest in emerging technologies particularly VR/AR, 3D technologies as well as how artificial intelligence will impact the future of work. You may connect with him on Twitter.