Google is updating Workspace to make AI the new intern in your office

At Google Cloud Next this week, the tech giant announced a bunch of new updates for Workspace, its subscription-based productivity suite aimed at professionals. As you might expect, the updates rely heavily on AI, integrating new automation tools into various workflows, everything from drafting emails to organizing Google Sheets. Overall, the changes are clearly designed to give office workers a leg up in their quest to do less busy work.

Here’s some of what’s new:

Workspace intelligence. Workspace Intelligence, a new AI system built into Google’s office suite, is designed to automate help across various tasks. The system relies on the user’s Workspace data, including Gmail, Calendar, Chat, and Drive (docs, presentations, and spreadsheets). Google has given users administrative control over what the AI ​​system can see and access. Users can disable Workspace Intelligence’s access to certain data sources at any time. Trade-off: The more data a system has access to, the more it can help in those specific areas.

Build and populate Google Sheets with Gemini. A number of new features allow users to create and fill out Google Sheets, the company’s spreadsheet tool. Users can create sheets by asking Gemini to create them. Prompts can include things like formatting and data retrieval, allowing Google’s AI system to do a lot of work that previously needed to be done by a human. At the same time, Gemini also helps with data entry, automatically filling spreadsheets with “quick prompt-based” filling. Google claims that its new feature allows users to fill out spreadsheets “9 times faster” than manual entry, because the system is designed to infer what you will enter. Another new spreadsheet feature allows users to convert unstructured data into structured tables.

Artificial intelligence writing capabilities. Google has also brought new AI-powered writing tools to Google Docs. Users can now use Gemini to “create, write, and enhance documents.” The feature is powered by the company’s Workspace Intelligence system, which draws on data from a user’s Drive, Chat, and Gmail archives, as well as the Internet, to assist with editorial tasks. Users just ask Gemini to help them write or edit their documents. Users can ask Gemini to “help me type” or ask it to “match” their writing style so it can effectively imitate their voice.

Realizing that enterprise customers are where the money is, technology companies are racing to deploy the most convenient and efficient office tools, applications that can make the life of the average worker easier to varying degrees. Google has a certain advantage; Its office products are already deeply integrated into workplaces around the world, giving it a built-in audience for these AI upgrades. But Microsoft, Apple and a growing group of startups are all competing on the same turf.