Google Gemini Gets Deep Workspace Integration with AI-Powered Draft Creation Across Apps

Google rolls out new Gemini capabilities to Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive | TechCrunch

Google announced on Tuesday that it's bringing a slew of new Gemini-powered AI capabilities to Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive. The new features let users do things like quickly generate fully formatted first drafts, slides, and sheets based on information from their Gmail, Chat, and Drive. The tools are designed to make the apps more personal and capable of helping users get things done faster, right within the platforms themselves, instead of needing to switch to a separate tool or chatbot. A new "Help me create" tool in Docs lets users describe what they want to create, and Gemini will follow their instructions and gather information from Drive, Gmail, and Chat to generate a first draft. For example, you can ask Gemini to "draft a newsletter for our neighborhood association using the meeting minutes from my January HOA meeting and the list of upcoming events." Once you have a first draft, Gemini can help refine specific sections without regenerating the entire document. You can also use the "Help me write" tool to do things like improve clarity or add details where needed. Additionally, if you have multiple people working on a draft with differing voices and tones, you can now use a new "Match writing style" feature to help unify the documents. Gemini will suggest edits to make the tone and voice consistent throughout the draft. Docs is also getting a new "Match the format" tool that lets you mirror the structure and style of another document. For example, if you find a travel itinerary template you like, Gemini can fill it in with your own trip details by pulling information from your emails, such as flight confirmations, hotel bookings, and rental car reservations. As for Sheets, Gemini is evolving from a tool you work in to a collaborative partner, Google says. With a single prompt, it will pull relevant data from across your Gmail, Chat, and Drive to quickly create a fully formatted spreadsheet. For example, you could ask it to "organize 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." For more complex tasks, you can now use a "Fill with Gemini" tool to populate tables even faster. The feature can instantly generate custom text, categorize and summarize data, or pull in real-time information from Google Search. For instance, if you're managing your college applications, you might have a tracker for all your application details. Instead of manually looking up each school's deadlines, tuition, and other information, you can set up column headers for the details you need, then let Gemini fill in the table automatically by pulling relevant information from the web. Over on Sheets, you can now have Gemini generate a fully editable slide in your deck that matches your overall theme, drawing on context from your files, emails, and the web. If you don't like a slide, you can ask Gemini to adjust it by asking it to do things like "match the colors to the rest of my deck" or "make this more minimal." In the future, Google says Slides will let you create a complete presentation from a single prompt, using relevant context when needed. For instance, you will be able to ask Gemini to "create a 5-slide deck for my upcoming Tokyo trip." Google also announced that it's making Drive no longer just a place to store your files, but more of an active collaborator. Now, when you search in Drive using natural language, Gemini will surface an "AI Overview" at the top of your results, like the ones you see on Google Search. The overview summarizes the most relevant information from your files, while citing its sources, so you don't need to open a document to find what you're looking for. A new "Ask Gemini in Drive" feature lets you ask complex questions across your documents, emails, calendar, and the web. For example, you could select all of your tax-related files and ask, "What should I ask my tax advisor before filing this year's taxes?" and get a detailed answer based on your actual data. All the new features are rolling out today in beta and will first be available to Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers. They're available in English worldwide for Docs, Sheets, and Slides, and in the U.S. for Drive.

I Used Google's New Gemini-Powered 'Help Me Create' Tool in Docs. It's Great at Corporate-Speak

Google rolled out multiple new AI features today for its core Workspace products: Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive. These apps now include additional tools powered by Gemini, Google's AI assistant. The features range from generating entire rough drafts in your Docs to finding information tucked away in the recesses of your Drive. This Google launch is part of a larger trend in 2026, in which major software developers are continuing to bake generative-AI-based features into core user experiences -- despite the lingering distaste many in the US have for tools like these. The features are coming first to English-speaking subscribers of Google's AI Pro and Ultra plans. For Docs, Google added "Help me create," which attempts to generate full first drafts of your document, from a prompt, by looking at your emails and files, and searching the internet for context. This feature takes the existing "Help me write" feature in the Chrome browser even further and points to a future where humans rely on AI to craft their thoughts and share ideas with others. Sheets and Slides both can now create similar full first drafts by pulling from information on the web and your past data. Another new, notable feature in Docs enables users to mimic the structure of past files when starting a new project. Also, Drive now includes AI Overviews of your files and more natural language searching abilities. My tests primarily focused on the new tools in Google Docs, where I have the most familiarity. To start, I asked Gemini to draft an itinerary for some St. Patrick's Day shenanigans. In just a few seconds, Gemini combed through my Gmail and the web to put together a short plan. I was a little creeped out when the bot correctly looked up my flight reservations to see what city I'd be located in on March 17. It also tacked on a few well-known Irish pubs where I could grab a pint of Guinness. Overall, the results of this test were quick and solid. Now let's raise the stakes. How convincing a first draft could Gemini generate for my job as a software reporter? WIRED's editorial standards block the use of generative AI, rightly so, except in situations where it's disclosed and used as an example. Rest assured, everything you're reading here was scribbled into my notebook before being typed up. Other digital media outlets may not have rigorous standards around AI use, and tools like "Help me create" could be forced onto early-career journalists expected to pump out numerous stories each day. I attached the press materials Google provided about today's launch and requested a 600-word hands-on story from Gemini, with first-person insights that could help readers better understand the launch.

Google's New AI Features Are Trying to Make Data Entry a Thing of the Past

The latest batch of Google updates to its workspace tools highlights AI's promise to automate mundanity in the workplace. Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and Drive all have new AI-powered features, the company announced Tuesday. The one thing all these updates have in common? Gemini is using your files, emails and chats to give you relevant information, not random answers gleaned from the web. These updates come as AI is playing a bigger role in our work lives, for better or worse. Agentic tools like Claude Cowork and coding assistants like Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex are more capable than chatbots and able to handle tasks announced independently. AI tools are also becoming more customized, with Google's personalized intelligence rolling out across its platforms to help refine AI outputs to things that are relevant and useful for you. Google continues that trend with this new batch of Workspace updates. New Gemini AI features in Google Workspace apps will cite their sources after each query. For example, if you ask Gemini in Google Docs to fill out an itinerary template, it will pull the information from your email, chats and files. The "sources" tab in the Gemini side panel will show you where it found the information it used, like your flight confirmation email and chats discussing dinner plans. Seeing where Gemini pulled its answers from is also how you'll double-check Gemini's work. The most impressive new features are in Sheets, where AI can fill in the holes in your spreadsheets. You can describe what you want the AI to do with a simple prompt and avoid writing an exact formula. You can click on an empty cell, select the pop-up that says "Drag to fill with Gemini," then highlight the cells you want Gemini to fill in. That deploys an AI agent to search the web to fill each cell with the necessary information. For example, if you have a spreadsheet of the contact info for local companies, you can have Gemini search the web to fill in a the location, CEO and other publicly available information of each company. The tool aims to dramatically reduce the time needed for manual data entry. Gemini can also summarize, categorize and create charts with prompts alone. You can also chat with Gemini in Sheets and have it scour your raw data to make custom reports and charts. No need for pivot tables if they confound you as much as they baffle me. One of the biggest uses of AI at work is helping create presentations. In Google Slides, you can now tell Gemini in natural language what you want to appear on a slide, and it will create it, matching the style of your existing slides. You can also ask Gemini to edit your slides if you don't want to waste time painstakingly moving design elements around the slide. The AI should fill the slides with relevant information based on your instructions and the work files it has access to, so you shouldn't need to replace a bunch of filler text. If you use Docs, Sheets and Slides through the Workspace account of your company, then you won't be able to turn off AI features individually. The managing company is in control of AI access for users. Personal users can tweak their settings to limit Gemini. The new features are rolling out in beta now, in English only, to Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers in the US, as well as some Google Workspace customers who are part of the Gemini Alpha testing program.

Google's Gemini AI is getting a bigger role across Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Google is embedding its Gemini AI assistant even more deeply within its Workspace apps. The changes, which are rolling out to Google Workspace and AI plan subscribers, include a new Gemini chat window inside Google Docs, a way to generate entire spreadsheets with AI, and a new Gemini-powered search feature in Drive. While Google Docs already shows you a few AI writing options alongside your blinking cursor, now you'll see a Gemini chat window at the bottom of your screen. There, you'll get the option to describe to Gemini the kind of document you'd like to create, and the AI assistant will use information from the web, Drive, Gmail, and Chat to generate and fully format a draft. You can also ask Gemini to match an existing document's format, which should save you some time editing the new doc's style and structure. Google is making some tweaks to the Gemini-powered editing features in Docs as well. If you're working on a document with other people, you can now highlight their text and select "Match writing style." Gemini will then analyze the tone of your document and rewrite the text accordingly. It can also make changes throughout your document based on a prompt, while showing its suggestions in-line -- similar to if someone else is editing your document. Google notes that these suggestions will be private until you approve them. With this rollout, Yulie Kwon Kim, Google's VP of product for Workspace, says Google aims to put Gemini "in the places where people work," so users don't have to navigate to a separate app or website. "When you are, for example, wanting to write a report, or write a customer brief, people are turning to Docs," Kwon Kim says. "You can get the assistance from Gemini right where you are in your familiar place, where you're doing your everyday work." Gemini is getting a bigger role in Sheets, too, as you can now ask Gemini to generate an entire spreadsheet -- not just tables -- by describing it. Gemini will use data across your files, emails, chats, and the web to create the spreadsheet. You can even have Gemini fill your tables using information from an existing spreadsheet or the web, which goes beyond the AI function that Google rolled out last year. During a briefing, Google showed how Gemini can search for and fill columns with the locations, revenue, and market capitalization of a list of companies inside a spreadsheet. Another feature coming to Sheets will help you solve "analytical tasks" by describing what you need in the app's side panel. "For instance, you can ask Gemini to optimize your weekly employee scheduling to maximize profit while balancing staff availability and required skills," Google says in its announcement. Meanwhile, a Gemini-powered upgrade heading to Slides allows you to ask the AI assistant to generate a slide for you. Gemini can automatically insert copy and format the slide to match the rest of your deck. You can even prompt Gemini to edit your slide, which means you won't have to fiddle with manually formatting text or images if you don't want to. Google plans to roll out the ability to generate an entire presentation based on a text prompt and your Workspace data "soon." And, in case you're having trouble managing all your files across Workspace, Google is trying to roll out a solution for that by transforming the app from a "passive storage container into an active knowledge base." When you search for a file in Drive using natural language, Google now presents you with an AI Overview -- similar to the one you see on Google Search. But instead of summing up results from the web, it will return a list of relevant documents, or answer your question with citations. You can also use a new "Ask Gemini in Drive" feature to ask the AI assistant about your stored files, or the information in Gmail, Calendar, and Chat. Google says you can "control which sources are included in your search," as well as narrow your focus to a certain group of folders. These new features will come with the same "enterprise-grade data protections as the rest of Workspace," according to Google. This update is rolling out now in English to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, as well as for Workspace customers with Gemini Alpha enabled.

Google wants Gemini to read your mind at work

The advanced AI features are exclusive to premium subscribers and will roll out over coming months, initially supporting English-only functionality. Google's Gemini AI isn't a newcomer to its Workplace applications, such as Docs, Sheets, and Slides. But it was originally pretty dumb. Now, "knowledge" is the word that best describes Gemini's new approach to how you work. In 2024, Google began integrating Gemini into its Workplace apps. But in Docs, for example, you had to manually explain all the information that you wanted to include, plus the format and style in which you wanted the copy to be written. But that's not the way that you work: you already have an idea of what you want to convey, and the source of that information. Instead of feeding it specific information, Gemini can now simply adapt what it already knows of your Workspace data let it use that as the foundation of your content. (A day earlier, Microsoft showed off something similar with Copilot and Microsoft 365.) Though Google is adding new features to Slides, Docs, Sheets, and Drive, this autonomous synthesis, rather than directed content, is the underlying basis of what Google will be adding over the coming months. Unfortunately, all of these features are only available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, or business customers that use Gemini Alpha. AI Pro costs $19.99./mo and Ultra costs $124.99/mo, putting the features out of reach for many users. Google Gemini Alpha is an optional feature which can be turned on for business Workspace customers. I can't help but think of these new features as the textual equivalent of some of the AI features Adobe has been added to Photoshop. AI art certainly allows to generate a visual composition from scratch, but you can generatively expand the copy in Docs, as you can do with images in Photoshop. Docs also allows you to use AI to edit a block of text for style and tone; just highlight it and prompt the changes. Finally, a visual editor allows you to smooth out any imperfections. Docs allows you to take text and ensure that it's tonally consistent with the rest of the document, even with multiple contributors. You can also ensure that it meets any corporate guidelines. The way in which Gemini has been integrated into Slides acts similarly: you can use AI to generate a quick slide, or just funnel Workspace data into a prompt to generate an entire presentation. (Again, this capability was here before; the autonomous synthesis aspect is new.) The latter capability is close, but not quite here, Google said. The finished product will include "beautiful layouts that balance hierarchy, spacing, and visual weight while matching the style of your other slides," Google said. Like Copilot for OneDrive, Google is also turning your collection of cloud documents into a database of sorts that you can search and query. What Google is trying to do isn't to provide a list of documents for you to manually go through, but to extract the information you need. Google is building on features like document summary, which have been in Drive before. Finally, there's Sheets. Here, Google and Gemini are doing three things, including allowing you to build a spreadsheet from data collected elsewhere, such as emails and other documents; as well as the capability to take that information and fill any empty cells that are available. Finally, there's a much more valuable aspect: using that data and asking questions of it, trying to extract knowledge with a prompt versus a complex formula. That's a challenge I've been wrestling with lately -- though Google's pricy subscriptions mean that I likely will be sticking with my existing Microsoft 365 subscription to solve the problem. It's not clear, however, whether these new charts will be dynamic; previous Gemini-generated charts were not. These new features aren't here today; instead, they'll be delivered in the coming months, Google said. For now, they're in English only.

Google Drive adding AI Overviews as Gemini upgraded in Slides, Sheets

With new Gemini features, Google wants to transform Drive "from a passive storage container into an active knowledge base." These updates are also coming to Google Slides and Sheets, starting today for AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers, as well as Gemini Alpha business customers for US-English. Google Drive Like Gmail in January, Google Drive search is getting overhauled with AI Overviews. The goal is to replace keyword queries with semantic search that generates a "highly relevant list of documents or a complete answer with citations." For example you can ask "Help me find customer feedback from the winter 2025 campaign." Gemini's advanced reasoning pulls the answer, quickly summarizing the exact details you need. Meanwhile, Ask Gemini in Google Drive lets you go deeper. You can "ask questions and get detailed responses, all based on the content from your files in Drive, as well as Gmail, Calendar, and Chat." Filters let you control what sources are included and narrow to specific folders and files. You can even save this curated list of sources as a project for you to reference later, or share with others. Projects adhere to Drive's built-in security and compliance controls, so only those with access to the underlying content can access it in the project. Google Slides In Slides, Create a slide has been updated so it "aligns to your overall theme and pulls context from your files, emails and the web." You can edit with prompts like "make this match the colors of the rest of my deck" or "make this more minimal," while Google can transform sketches and tables into editable charts and diagrams. More broadly, Generate a presentation in the future will let you just enter a prompt, like "create a 5-slide deck for my upcoming Tokyo trip." Gemini will use your Workspace data to create a "complete presentation that is on-brand in a fraction of the time it typically takes." You can make further edits by prompting. For example, to pitch your new campaign plan you can ask Gemini to build a presentation based on your document and a style in line with your corporate branding. Gemini instantly synthesizes the document, organizes the narrative into a presentation format, and applies visually appealing layouts to create your presentation. Google Sheets Finally, Gemini in Sheets will let you build or edit entire spreadsheets using natural language prompts. Google "orchestrates the complex, multi-step construction from start to finish, synthesizing data across your files, emails, and chat, and the web." Imagine you're a small business and you need a quick view of last year's financial health. You can ask Gemini to create a P&L dashboard leveraging your historic service incidents and rate cards. Gemini constructs a plan for you to approve, then retrieves the relevant details structuring the data in a well formatted spreadsheet with stylized tables and charts. A Fill with Gemini feature can auto-populate tables with "summarized, categorized, or brand-new data from your existing sheet or the web." It can also understand intent. This method of populating data is 9x faster than manual entry for 100-cell tasks*. Gemini can now handle hard analytical tasks like advanced optimization problems that "typically require complex manual formulas or third-party tools to solve" thanks to advancements from Google DeepMind and Google Research. Just describe your goal and other rules to Gemini. For instance, you can ask Gemini to optimize your weekly employee scheduling to maximize profit while balancing staff availability and required skills. Gemini handles the complex logic to identify the best way to deploy your team.

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. 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. 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' 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." 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.

Google Docs upgrades now let you co-edit with Gemini

Gemini in Google Docs is getting a slew of new features that upgrade and better integrate the experience. The end result is a more Canvas-like experience that lets you co-edit with Gmail. Gemini in Google Docs can now generate a "relevant, fully formatted first draft" with an overhauled Help me create experience. From the Gemini side panel or new pill-shaped bottom bar that takes after the Gemini app with an attachments 'plus' menu and tools, just "describe what you want to create and Gemini will follow your instructions synthesizing information from your Gmail, Google Drive, Chat, and the web. ...you can ask Gemini to create a marketing campaign plan for an idea you have, based on successful campaigns from the past. Gemini automatically finds the relevant details from across Workspace, structures the document, and applies styles and smart chips, delivering a beautiful first draft in moments. After the initial draft, you can use Gemini's Help me write to refine "specific sections without regenerating the entire document." Just highlight text and tap the Refine chip to enter a prompt or use one of the suggestions. This lets you tighten arguments, polish prose, and add fresh insights. ...continuing the example above, you can ask Gemini to strengthen your document to stand out to your leadership team. Gemini understands this context and suggests copy edits for you to review and accept. These edits remain private until you approve them, keeping you in full control. Gemini has a new Match writing style feature that addresses how having multiple editors "can lead to messy documents with differing voice and tone." This new feature "analyzes your document and suggests edits to make the tone and voice consistent throughout the document." The final Google Docs feature lets you "match the format of your favorite documents to mirror their structure and style." Google notes how over one third of new Docs are created from a copy. These new Gemini features in Google Docs are starting to roll out today to Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers (English global), as well as Gemini Alpha business customers globally "whose default language is US-English only."

New ways to create faster with Gemini in Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive

We've all been there: the blinking cursor, the empty spreadsheet or the first blank slide. Whether you're planning a trip, organizing an event or launching a side project, getting started is often the hardest part. Today, we're making Gemini in Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive more personal, capable and collaborative to help you get things done, faster. When you select your sources, Gemini can now pull relevant information from your files, emails and the web to securely connect dots and uncover useful insights, while keeping your information safeguarded. Keep reading to learn more about the new beta features rolling out starting today to Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers -- and how you can try them. Gemini in Docs is your go-to writing partner. Using contextual information and new editing features, Gemini can now help you create personalized documents in your preferred style.

Google's Gemini AI wants to do the busywork in Docs and Sheets

Google is rolling out new AI features designed to quickly flesh out Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides using data from the web and your existing Google files. The overall aim is to eliminate much of the busywork involved in filling out templated documents, transferring data from saved files or internet sources into spreadsheets, and tweaking slide presentations to add new facts and figures -- all while reflecting the personal and professional preferences expressed in people's previous work. "It's not enough to simply generate a generic email or brief," says Yulie Kwon Kim, VP of product for Google Workspace. "People want AI to understand your specific context, delivering results that are deeply personalized to them and their organization." In Google Docs, that means being able to instruct Google's Gemini AI to generate a document mimicking the layout or writing style of another document, fleshed out with content from additional sources stored on Google Drive. Already, says Google Docs product lead Frank Tisellano, more than a third of Docs are created as copies of another document, and the AI features are intended to let users create at least a first draft of their new files close to instantaneously.

Google enhances Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive with deeper Gemini integration - SiliconANGLE

Google enhances Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive with deeper Gemini integration Google LLC announced today that it's making "prep work" for collaboration and creation easier for users of its cloud productivity tools in Workspace across Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive through a deeper integration with Gemini as an artificial intelligence assistant. Gemini, Google's flagship large language model, received its most recent update major update in February with Gemini 3.1 Pro. The update introduced powerful reasoning capabilities using a mixture-of-experts architecture, allowing it to use tools, reason across large numbers of documents, and understand both images and audio. With this recent update, Google introduced a new "Help me create" experience in Docs. Users can describe what they want to create and it will follow instructions and synthesize information by looking over Drive, Gmail, Chat and web sources to generate a fully formed draft. For example, users could type up that they want to create a first draft of a campaign plan from an idea they have, based on previous successful campaigns. Gemini would go to work by looking through Drive and Gmail to pull in contacts and other relevant details to structure the document, apply styles and generate a fitting first draft. Google also said Gemini could assist with cleaning up messy documents. When multiple collaborators work together on a single document, they can have different styles, voice and tone. In a single click, Gemini can adjust tone and unify writing style. The LLM analyzes the document and edits it to make tone and voice consistent. During a demonstration, Google also showed how formatting can be copied from one document to another. Using Gemini, the AI assistant can take the structure and style of one document and copy it onto another, eliminating the need for additional file copies or tedious manual formatting. Google Sheets has always been the mainstay for project tracking, data entry and complex mathematics and finance. The problems that people face when using this tool have always been finding scattered data and getting it visualized or formatted correctly. To address this problem, Google brought Gemini in to assist with building or editing entire spreadsheets through natural language. A user can describe what they need, Gemini then orchestrates gathering data, building multistep sheet designs from start to finish, builds complex calculations and finally displays outputs. The AI has access to files, emails, chat and the web, so it can pull in data from myriad sources and show where it got the data, how it sourced it and even allow the user to adjust its parameters and iterate as it goes. Even after a Sheet has been built, Google added "Fill with Gemini," allowing users to auto-populate sections of the Sheet by selecting sections. Gemini will take a guess at what data should appear in cells by looking at adjacent cells and column titles and then pull in appropriate data. Gemini is particularly adept at building complex Sheets that require multi-cell calculations and optimization problems or power visualization dashboards with complex formulas that change according to data input into the cells. Creating a slide or presentations is now just as easy as writing a note to Gemini. Before, users had to develop Sides themselves, using assets, wording, data and creative decisions manually, but now Gemini has automated most of this process. A single natural language prompt for Gemini and the AI assistant will automatically craft a slide for the deck including messaging ideas, layout, spacing and visual weight. It will match company branding and can even turn brainstorm sketches or tables into fully editable charts and diagrams. Slides are just the start. Google also said the new update allows Gemini to generate entire presentations from scratch by describing what a user needs. By looking at Workspace data, Gemini can create a presentation, with multiple slides, all on-brand and with a complete narrative with fully editable layouts and assets. The primary usefulness of Drive is acting as storage and access for files. However, as users start to pull in many documents and files, it can become an overgrowth of stuff, like a hoarder's nightmare of bric-a-brac and trivia. Searching it might bring back individual useful files, but without thoughtful organization it's not always a go-to for most people except as an archive. With the addition of Gemini's intelligence, Google said it can turn traditional keyword searches, which often return long lists of files, making searches tedious, into AI overviews. These overviews can help pull out more relevant files, provide complete answers with citations and make Drive a knowledge base instead of cold storage. Now, Ask Gemini is part of Drive. This lets users ask questions about their Drive files, get detailed responses and understand how what they have stored might compare to content across Gmail, Calendar and Chat. Google said users control what sources are included, or narrow focus to specific folders or files to create personalized knowledge repositories. These new experiences will be rolling out today to users, in English only, for users with Google AI Pro and Ultra plans. Access via other languages will come soon.