Google Upgrades Gemini Side Panel in Workspace Apps With New Features

Google added new capabilities to the Gemini assistant in Workspace apps on Tuesday. The Mountain View-based tech giant said that Gemini in Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive is now more personalised, capable, and collaborative. The biggest upgrade is that the artificial intelligence (AI) tool can now create a final draft from scratch with a single prompt, something it could not do earlier. While this is not on the same level as Claude Cowork or the recently launched Copilot Cowork, it does bring some level of automation to Google's productivity ecosystem.

Google Brings Gemini-Powered Automation to Workspace Apps

In a blog post, the tech giant announced and detailed the new features. Gemini in Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Drive can now start working on a blank file and create the first draft based on natural language prompts. This is a major upgrade, as earlier, the chatbot could only assist in improving content on Docs, adding templates and layouts to Slides, and adding formulas and stylistic changes to a spreadsheet.

To achieve this, the side panel assistant can now pull relevant information from users' files, emails, and the Internet, and use it all to create documents. Starting with Docs, Gemini can create a first draft of the content by drawing from the abovementioned sources. It also continues to polish and refine sections, but now it can also match the writer's voice when the user selects the Match writing style option. Similarly, using the Match doc format lets it align the style of a reference document.

For Google Sheets, the update allows the AI assistant to create, organise, and edit entire spreadsheets. Users can type a prompt, and Gemini will set up the spreadsheet by drawing on relevant details from their emails and files. For more complex projects, users can opt for the Fill with Gemini feature, which generates custom text, categorises data, and summarises information within a table. It can also find relevant information from Search to populate missing fields.

Google Slides gets the same treatment. Gemini can now generate a fully editable slide, complete with templates, layouts, text, images, and diagrams. It can also collaboratively edit an existing slide. The company says it is working on a new feature that will let users generate an entire deck with a single prompt.

Finally, Google Drive now provides an AI Overview at the top of the search results when users search for files or information. A new Ask Gemini in Drive feature will also let users ask complex questions about documents, emails, calendar, and the web.

These Workspace features are currently available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. While the update to Docs, Sheets, and Slides is available globally, the new Drive features are currently limited to the US. Only the English language is supported for now.