Google Workspace apps continue to gain generative AI boosts, as many otherbusiness productivity suitesare adding new features for automating clerical tasks with a few quick prompts. The search giant is getting ahead of itself, allowing trusted testers to use Google Docs' andGmail’s AI writing assistantssince March, similar to how it initially approached the rollout ofBard. Artificial intelligence has sincepopped up in other Workspace apps like Slides, except in Sheets, where it could prove transformative. That is changing now that Google has begun to integrate Duet AI into your spreadsheets.
If you previously signed up forGoogle Workspace Labsand were accepted, you should now have access to Sheets' new sidebar, which houses its AI sidekick. The “Help me organize” sidebar does exactly what it says on the tin: organize your spreadsheet or create a calculation for you.
Google said in a tweet that this feature is rolling out now after announcing Sheets' AI superpowers at last month’sI/O conference. You can type what you want to accomplish in the text box, and Duet AI will generate a custom template to get things started.
Prompts like “Agenda for a one-day sales kickoff event with session descriptions and status” automatically create a table containing suggested categories. The AI comes in handy for a variety of use cases, like product roadmaps and budgets.
By bringing this type of time-saving AI magic into Sheets, Google wants to demonstrate its eagerness to catch up to rivals such as Microsoft in the AI war. Since ChatGPT’s rise to fame last year and Microsoft’s integration of OpenAI’s AI chatbot into Bing earlier this year, Google has beenscrambling to incorporate AI into its services.
Of course, rushing to bake AI into text-generating software programs like Docs and Gmail has its risks, including notoriously unreliable information presented with complete confidence. On the other hand, Google reiterates that its AI features are meant to serve as assistants rather than replacements for human functions. In fact, you can edit and customize a spreadsheet after inserting any AI-generated content into it.
