Google has announced that it’s rolling out some AI-assisted features to some of its productivity apps. This announcement came after the release of Open AI’s GPT-4 of which Microsoft, its rival, is a major investor, and a few days before Microsoft’s online event focused on AI and productivity software.
The fight between these rival big tech companies is not new, as generative AI seems to be the new oil of the tech industry. These top technology companies are now rushing to work similar capabilities into their own products.
However, the interesting thing about these Google AI-powered features is that they are in accordance with Google’s AI principles which keep the user in control and the AI as a helping hand.
Speaking about the importance of providing a seamless workspace experience, Johanna Voolich Wright, Vice President, Product, Google Workspace, said,
We’re now making it possible for Workspace users to harness the power of generative AI to create, connect, and collaborate like never before. To start, we’re introducing a first set of AI-powered writing features in Docs and Gmail to trusted testers.
However, just like its chatbot, Bard, Google has made these features only available to trusted testers in the US only for now, with hopes of making it globally accessible by the end of the year.
The AI features will be implemented in some of the workspace productivity tools including Google Docs, Gmail, Sheets, and Slides and it is unsure if there is a subscription plan that will be added to these features in the future.
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How will these AI features work with these tools?

Before the launch of these AI-powered features, Workspace’s mission has been “to meaningfully connect people so they can create, build and grow together”, but with these features, it hopes to allow users to deliver this mission in new and creative ways.
With Google Docs


This is to help people get started with their writing drafts. With this AI, you can type a topic you’d like to write about, and a draft will instantly be generated for you with the style and tone of your choice. You can continue working on the writing by refining and editing with more AI suggestions. It helps you discuss, summarize and brainstorm as you write your piece.
With Gmail


This AI feature can help you craft and rewrite your emails with the right tone and style. Also, it can transform a few jotted bullet points into a more polished summary for your team. It can summarize long-chain emails to save some time. You can also try out the AI voice option with the “I’m feeling lucky” in Gmail.
Other features include:
- It will bring the user’s creative vision to life with auto-generated images, audio, and video in Slides.
- Help users go from raw data to insights and analysis via auto-completion, formula. generation, and contextual categorization in Sheets.
- It will also generate new backgrounds and capture notes in Meet.
- It will enable workflows for getting things done in Chat.
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