Google’s Duet AI Features Testing on Gmail, Docs and Drive Expands to More Users: Report

Google has reportedly expanded testing for its Duet AI artificial intelligence (AI)-powered real-time collaborator for Google's online services including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Sheets, and Google Slides. Duet AI was first unveiled by the tech giant during the Google I/O 2023, and since then it has been in a closed testing phase. Before it is launched across the company's online services, Google is testing the feature with users who have enrolled in the Workspace Labs program.

According to a 9to5Google report, Duet AI's side panel has begun appearing for several users enrolled in the Workspace Labs program. Opening the online apps resulted in a welcome screen that explained that these early and experimental features are now available to them. Beta testers get experimental features for a temporary period, and it is expected that once the testing is done, Duet AI will become available as part of the Google One AI Premium plan for personal Google account holders. Duet AI can undertake specific tasks in online apps. The side panel can be expanded to half the screen in all the apps except Gmail, as per the report.

Google announced a detailed overview of the features in a blog post last year. In Gmail, Duet AI can summarise email threads, explain conversations in a simplified language, suggest, write, and improve replies, and even find information from other emails. Users can ask the AI questions such as “When is my next flight” and it will scan through the emails to find the booking details and will give a concise answer.

Similarly, in Google Drive, the Duet AI side panel can be used to track files, summarise project folders, create bullet points from large documents, and even answer queries involving data from the files in the Drive and emails in Gmail. Coming to Google Docs, Duet AI can showcase its full range of generative capabilities as it can brainstorm ideas, write content from scratch, add to pre-written content, create tables, generate images, and more. Google claims that Duet AI can understand contextual speech and can collaborate with the user to improve efficiency.

In Google Sheets, using the “help me organise” capability, the AI assistant can create custom plans for tasks, projects, or activities. This includes creating tables, and formulas, adding filters, and even performing goals-based tasks from scratch. In Google Slides, Duet AI can generate slides as per specifications, add elements and images, write words, summarise presentations, add slide animation, and even create customised presentation layouts. While the report does not mention it, Duet AI was also planned for Google Meet where it could generate unique backgrounds. These features are expected to make their way to subscribers when Duet AI exits beta testing in the future.