Google adds new Gemini features to Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive

Google has announced several new Gemini-powered features across its Workspace apps, integrating its generative AI model in Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive. Intended to make starting projects easier, these new AI features enable Gemini to generate drafts with information pulled from your emails, chats, and files.

"So, for example, for Google Docs, very often, the first step of starting any new writing project is all the manual prep," Google VP of Workspace Yulie Kwon Kim said in an interview with Mashable. "You spend a lot of time gathering your notes, digging through your emails, bringing together, hunting down all of the different files or sources, and all of that just to get to the first draft on the page. And so now, what we're doing is Gemini handles that for you."

Fortunately, Gemini won't dive into your personal correspondence uninvited. Users will first have to direct it to grab that information from your Gmail, Drive, or Chat via a prompt entered into a new text bar in each Workspace app. One prompt example provided by Google: "draft a newsletter for our neighbourhood association using the meeting minutes from my January HOA meeting and the list of upcoming events." In addition to telling Gemini whether to draw from your emails and files, you can also have it pull from resources online.

"So with a single prompt, in a new bottom bar on the bottom of Google Docs, you can basically tell Gemini what you want to do, and it will actually draw on your own Google Drive, your Gmail, your chat, to pull in information that can actually, in one shot, output a super helpful first draft, that you can then co-edit together with Gemini," said Kim.

"First, when you're actually first writing the prompt, you can actually indicate which sources you want Gemini to be able to source from. And then, at the output level, after it's generated, say that first draft of your [Doc], you can actually see exactly which emails or docs were used to generate the output. And then you can actually go in there and see. So it gives you two levels of visibility, when you're working with Gemini on this."

Here are all the new Gemini-powered AI features in Google Workspace.

Google Docs

In addition to generating first drafts from users' data as mentioned above, Gemini can also edit sections of a document to "refine" and help "strengthen your message and build on your ideas." Users can highlight a section, click "refine," then give Gemini a prompt such as "make this doc more professional while keeping the tone energetic." This will generate a rewrite of the text you've highlighted guided by your prompt.

Google Docs' new Gemini features also enable it to alter sections of a document so that its tone, voice, and style is consistent with the rest. You can further generate a document to match the formatting of a different reference document — a tool directed at users who tend to base new documents on copies of older ones. 

Google Sheets

Similarly to Google Docs, Google Sheets will allow users to generate entire spreadsheets which pull data from your emails, chats, and Google Drive based on a prompt. In a prompt example provided by Google, users can ask Gemini to "organise my upcoming move to Chicago. Create a checklist for packing by room, a contact list for utilities and a spreadsheet to track moving company quotes from my inbox." 

Gemini will also enter data into existing spreadsheets following plain English prompts, so you don't have to spend the type typing it in manually.

Google Slides

Google Slides' Gemini-powered upgrade won't allow you to generate an entire slide deck from a prompt just yet (though the company states that this feature is coming soon). However, it does enable you to generate individual slides for a preexisting deck, pulling data from Gmail, Drive, and the internet as directed. 

You can then edit the generated slide manually or ask Gemini to do so with prompts such as "make this match the colours of the rest of my deck."

Google Drive

While Google Drive is used for storing and sharing files rather than creating them, it's getting the generative AI treatment as well. Specifically, Google Drive's search will now produce a Gemini-powered AI Overview summarising information from files it considers relevant to your inquiry (including citations). A feature previously introduced to Gmail, the AI Overview will appear at the top of your search results.

Google Drive is also getting a new "Ask Gemini in Drive" feature, which allows you to ask the chatbot questions about files, emails, calendars, and online content you select. For example, Google states that you could select your tax-related files and ask Gemini, "what should I ask my tax advisor before I file this year's tax returns?" These can be conversations rather than one-off inquiries as well.

"So, it's a really helpful and fun way, I think, to use Gemini, and what, I think is especially powerful, is that it's right there in your Google Doc," said Kim. "You don't need to go anywhere else to be able to have this level of Gemini capability. You don't need to learn another app, go toggle back and forth between two places. It's all right there, for you in Docs."

Google's new Gemini-powered features will begin rolling out in beta today, with Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers the first to receive them. The new Docs, Sheets, and Slides features will be available in English globally, while the Drive features are only coming to the U.S. for now.

Google has been going in hard on Gemini recently, adding new AI features to everything from its Chrome browser to its Maps app. Though as always, you should never depend entirely on AI, and certainly not for important matters. While the technology may appear impressive, generative AI algorithms aren't perfect and remain prone to errors, which can have severe consequences when humans trust them uncritically. Remember that AI is known to hallucinate, inventing fake data that sounds real, so always double check what it tells you no matter which model you use.