This is what the future of working with office applications looks like. Google introduced a ton of AI news in Workspace

An empty document, an unfilled spreadsheet, the first blank slide of a presentation – we all know that feeling when starting is the hardest part. Google has decided to tackle this problem its own way and is integrating a series of new artificial intelligence-based features into its Workspace office suite, powered by Gemini. It can now work not only with what you directly type but also search your files, emails, and the web to compile relevant output. Let’s see what this means in practice.

Documents: from a blank page to finished text

Gemini in Google Docs is becoming something like a personal scribe who knows you. Just describe what you need to create, and AI will pull relevant information from your files. The software giant illustrates this with an example: you need to write a newsletter for a neighborhood community. Instead of manually sifting through meeting minutes and event lists, you simply type “create a newsletter for our housing cooperative based on the January meeting minutes and a list of planned events” – and Gemini will assemble the first draft for you.

The Match writing style feature is interesting, as it unifies the writing style across the entire document. When multiple people work on a text or you compile it from various sources, the result often feels inconsistent. Gemini can “retune” the entire document into a consistent tone.

Personally, I was very impressed by the Match doc format feature, which automatically adapts the format of a new document to that of an existing one. About a month ago, when I achieved the same thing quite laboriously using Gemini and Canvas mode, it would have saved me a significant amount of time.

Spreadsheets: describe the project, Sheets will create it

According to Google, Gemini in Sheets achieves the best results in its category in benchmarks. In practice, this means you can describe an entire project to it, and it will create a complete spreadsheet structure. An example? You’re planning to move to another city. You type “organize my move – create a packing checklist by room, contacts for utilities, and a table to compare moving company offers from my mail”. Gemini will not only create the structure but also immediately fill in the data it finds in your emails.

The Fill with Gemini feature is practical. Let’s say you’re keeping track of universities you want to apply to. Instead of manually searching for application deadlines and tuition fees, you just need to create columns with the names of the information you need and drag down – Gemini will automatically fill in the data from the web. This saves hours of monotonous work copying data from various pages.

Presentations: from idea to finished slides

In Presentations, Gemini acts as a design partner. It can create a fully editable slide that visually fits the rest of your presentation and draws context from your source materials. If the result isn’t exactly what you envisioned, simply type something like “match colors with the rest of the presentation” or “make it minimalistic.”

Google is also working on the ability to generate entire presentations from a single prompt. This feature should arrive soon and will allow, for example, creating a five-slide presentation about a planned vacation, where Gemini itself will find the necessary information and assemble it into a logical structure.

Drive: finally intelligent search

Google Drive is no longer just a file storage. When searching using natural language, an AI summary of the most relevant information from your documents, along with specific links, will now appear at the top. You no longer have to guess the names of individual files, let alone open them, to find the answer to what interests you.

Even more useful is the Ask Gemini in Drive feature. You can select all your tax-related documents and ask: “What should I discuss with my tax advisor before filing my return?” Gemini will go through your documents and compile a specific list of questions based on your actual data. This is something that regular search would never offer you.

No Czech language support yet

All the mentioned features are currently in beta and available only to subscribers of Google AI Ultra and Pro plans. A more restrictive catch, however, is that the new features in Docs, Sheets, and Slides currently only work in English, and the Drive features are even further regionally restricted to the USA. Google typically indicated that availability would expand over time but did not disclose details. Therefore, we cannot say exactly when we will be able to fully streamline our work with these new enhancements here in the Czech Republic.

Would you use an AI assistant when working with office documents?

Source: Google