At this week's Google Cloud Summit, tech giant Google announced a series of major updates to its subscription-based productivity suite, Workspace. All new features are powered by its new AI system, Workspace Intelligence. These updates aim to reduce the burden of complex tasks for office workers and provide more automation tools, covering multiple workflows from writing emails to organizing Google Sheets.
Workspace Intelligence is Google's newly launched AI system designed to automate assistance with various tasks. The system uses data from users' Workspace, including Gmail, calendars, chat records, and cloud storage (Docs, Slides, and Sheets). Notably, Google allows users to manage the access permissions of the AI system, enabling them to disable Workspace Intelligence from accessing certain data sources at any time. It should be noted that the more data the AI system accesses, the stronger its ability to assist will be.
In Google Sheets, users can now use Gemini to build and fill out spreadsheets. The new feature allows users to prompt Gemini to create tables, including formatting and data extraction, reducing work that used to require manual effort. At the same time, Gemini can also automatically fill in the table in a "prompt-based" way to quickly complete data input. Google claims that this feature can make users fill out spreadsheets nine times faster than manual input. Another new feature can convert unstructured data into ordered tables, further improving user efficiency.
Additionally, Google has introduced a new AI writing tool in Google Docs. Users can now use Gemini to generate, write, and refine documents. This feature is also driven by the Workspace Intelligence system, which can use users' cloud storage, chat records, and Gmail archives, as well as internet data to help with editing. Users just need to prompt Gemini to assist with writing or editing documents, and even ask it to "mimic" their own writing style to better reflect their personal voice.
As enterprise customers become the focus of competition among tech companies, Google has gained a relative competitive advantage through its widely recognized office products around the world. Meanwhile, Microsoft, Apple, and a group of emerging startups are also competing fiercely in the same market, striving to provide users with more convenient and efficient office tools.
Key Points:
🆕 The new Workspace Intelligence system can help users automate various tasks.
📊 The Gemini feature has increased the speed of creating and filling Google Sheets by nine times.
✍️ The AI writing tool in Google Docs can generate and edit documents, improving writing efficiency.
