Duet AI, the AI assistant for Google Workspace, has just been made available for almost all Workspace applications. During Google Cloud Next, the tech giant detailed how the generative AI tool is capable of all sorts of tasks that ease the daily workload an employee faces. Within Slides, Meet, Gmail and Chat, among others, Duet AI can be deployed to take mundane tasks away from the user.
A concrete example of what Duet AI can do can be found with Google Meet. During a video call, the tool can take notes and summarize what was covered during the conversation. In case something slipped past your attention initially, you can also chat with the bot during the call to find out exactly what was said. Integrations with other Workspace applications make it easy to build on this information, such as copying summaries to a Docs file. This particular application won’t be initially available, though: Workspace Labs is set to support AI notes sometime in the next few months.
Presentations, AI presence
Other examples abound, such as the automatic creation of a Slides presentation based on initial notes. It’s somewhat familiar territory for those already familiar with the AI functionality within the Microsoft 365 suite. Still, one feature specific to Google Meet is at least unique: the “attend for me” capability allows users to not participate in a conversation and still relay information to those who do attend. In addition, the aforementioned summary of what was discussed can be accessed afterwards.
Within Google Chat, it is possible to converse directly with a generative AI bot. This functionality also integrates seamlessly with other Workspace apps: for example, those who want to have a Docs text summarized or request a data point from Google Sheets can go ahead and ask for it. For individual conversations within Chat, there’s now the “smart reply” feature, which creates a personalized reply with a single click. Apart from AI-specific innovations, there is also a new interface for Google Chat including improved search functionality. There is now support for Chat groups of up to 500,000 participants.
Hammering on privacy
The deployment of generative AI in business relies heavily on secure handling of data. Privacy is a spearhead of Google’s announcement: the data that organizations place within Workspace will not go anywhere else or be used for training new AI models.
End users can have a go with Duet AI with a free trial. Interested parties need only indicate, in addition to providing personal details, how many employees the organization in question has and whether one is already a Workspace customer.
Also read: Google Workspace updates secure actions in Gmail and help collaborations