During the company’s big Cloud Next 2024 presentation, Google unveiled quite a few new AI ventures on its horizon. Most of these advancements are reserved for Google Workspace, which means you won’t get them on your personal Google Account (unless you pay for Workspace yourself). That said, if your company or business uses Google Workspace, you’re about to get some new AI-powered tools to help you get your work done.
One of the big new additions here is the ability to use your voice to trigger Google’s “Help me write” feature: Previously, you needed to right-click in an open text field to use “Help me write,” which, as the name suggests, gets you started writing with generative AI when the words just aren’t coming to you. Now, you can ask Gemini what you want it to write with your voice—another step towards making Google’s AI bit more like a smart assistant.
Another new feature is exclusive for Gmail: The next time you write a rough draft of an email, you may see the option to “Polish draft,” which will use Gemini to rewrite your existing draft into something more, let’s say, presentable. I imagine in the near future, all of our correspondence is going to sound exactly the same.
Google Sheets users will soon see the option to initiate an alert when cells are changed, which will keep everyone on the file in the loop. Google’s also putting a big emphasis on its new templates, which it claims will ensure you “never have to build a spreadsheet from scratch again.”
Google Docs, on the other hand, is getting tabs for the first time. This is a great addition for anyone who often bounces between multiple documents that all concern a similar topic: Rather than draw up different docs, you can just start new tabs in the same file, which should cut down on the time you spend bouncing around looking for information.
You’ll also find Gemini in Google Chat, where it can help summarize your messages and respond to queries about the chat. In a coming update, Google Chat will automatically translate messages into your chosen language, and chats will support up to 500,000 members. Speaking of translation, Google Meet will automatically translate conversations in up to 69 languages. You’ll see these transcripts on-screen as Gemini transcribes the speaker on the call. Google is now testing Google Meet’s ability to take notes for you in preview. These features will be included as an optional add-on for $US10 per user per month.
Perhaps the highlight of the announcement, however, was Google Vids. While it sounds like an AI program for generating videos, it’s a bit more involved than that. You tell Vids what you want in a video, and the AI will spit out a storyboard you can work from. Then, it’ll compile a rough draft using stock footage, images, music, and sound effects, which you can edit as you like. You can even add a voiceover using your own voice, or one of Google’s voices. Google’s goal here is to “help anyone become a great storyteller at work.” Personally, I’m just glad Google isn’t creating full AI videos for a simple work meeting. Leave that to OpenAI, I guess.