Google Expands Gemini’s Deep Research Tool to Workspace Apps, Offers It for Free

Google added a new feature to its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Gemini on Wednesday. The new addition is the expansion of the Deep Research tool, which can now connect to several Google Workspace platforms and process data stored there to create more comprehensive reports. With this, the Mountain View-based tech giant has also taken big steps to deepen the integration of Gemini within its ecosystem. Interestingly, it is a free feature, meaning even those without a paid subscription can access and use it.

Gemini Deep Research Now Connects to Workspace Platforms

In a blog post, the tech giant announced and detailed the new functionality in Deep Research. As a refresher, Deep Research is the company's agentic tool that creates a comprehensive research plan based on the prompt and then executes it. At the time of releasing the feature, Google called it a research assistant that can be useful for students as well as scientists writing a new thesis.

At the time, the feature only used information from the web or a document the user uploaded to create the report. But now, users can connect it to Google Drive, which includes Docs, Slides, Sheets and PDFs, Gmail, and Google Chat. This means it can access files, emails, chat messages, and more to draw data and analyse them. It is currently available on the website, with access to mobile apps to be added soon.

Using the feature is pretty straightforward. After visiting the Gemini website, select Deep Research from the Tools menu, and a new option dubbed Sources appears. Click on it and it will show four new options — Search, Drive, Gmail, and Chat. Just selecting Search will result in the tool running a typical web-based search to find information. But to ground the tool, users can just select their Gmail, Drive and Chat. This will help them create reports on their data and projects.

Highlighting an example of what users can do with this new functionality, the post mentioned, “you can start a market analysis for a new product by having Deep Research analyse your team's initial brainstorming docs, related email threads and project plans.”