Irwin Lazar, principal analyst at Metrigy, said the addition of Ask Gemini in Chat highlights Google’s efforts to compete more directly with Microsoft Teams. “Today, chat is the primary interface for employee engagement as email has fallen by the wayside,” he said. “Ideally, I’d like to see the AI interface be equally accessible across all apps, so one could access it in Gmail, Docs, etc.”
Other AI-related updates to Workspace apps announced at Google Cloud Next include the ability to build and edit spreadsheets in Sheets via natural language prompts; Gemini can orchestrate “multi-step construction” and combine data from various sources such as a user’s files, emails, and chats, as well as the web. Gemini in Docs is getting an upgrade, too, with the ability to create infographics grounded in business data.
Underpinning some of the Gemini features is a new work graph, Workspace Intelligence, that connects data held across emails, chats, files and the web to improve the accuracy and relevance of outputs from Gemini agents. Workspace Intelligence “understands complex semantic relationships” between a user’s data and apps, helping to personalize these outputs by learning past work and communication patterns,” Google said.