Google’s New Workspace Intelligence Is About to Be Your Ultimate AI Co-Worker

Some of the most popular work-focused apps of all time are about to become more intertwined than before, thanks to artificial intelligence.

Google has announced Workspace Intelligence, a new “semantic layer” for its Google Workspace suite of products. The new capability enables Gemini-powered AI agents to understand and replicate the unique context of your workplace and job when you use products like Google Sheets and Google Docs.

Yulie Kwon Kim, Google Workspace’s head of product, says that Workspace Intelligence is intended to emulate the institutional knowledge of a long-tenured employee, but for AI systems. “There are a lot of LLMs out there that are powerful and capable,” says Kim, “but they end up being generic. They don’t know your institutional history, how you like to format your professional voice and preferences.”

The key to creating an actually-useful AI coworker, says Kim, is to provide AI models with the “rich organizational context” found in a company’s documents, emails, presentations, and messages. Because Workspace Intelligence automatically scans your emails and messages, it can generate content that sounds like it was written by you, and can transform its outputs to replicate your unique voice. With this context, Gemini will know to format a spreadsheet in Google Sheets the right way, for example, or know to never include exclamation points in your emails. Or maybe to include them all the time!

With Workspace Intelligence, Kim says that conversations with Gemini will become more like running a “command center for your work,” enabling users to pull in data from sources including Google Drive, Gmail, and Sheets. Google says that the chat feature, now named “Ask Gemini in Chat,” will make it easier for workers to find files, schedule meetings with coworkers, and get recommendations for the first actions they should take after opening their laptop.

In Sheets, Google’s web-based spreadsheet software, users can harness Workspace Intelligence to develop and edit spreadsheets based on data from Gmail or Google Drive. The tech has also enabled a new feature called Sheets Canvas, which enables Gemini to turn spreadsheets into dynamic “mini-apps” and dashboards.

In Docs, Google’s cloud-based word processor, Workspace Intelligence can be used to add infographics to text documents, and to edit documents based on comments left by the user.