Google announces AI integration in Docs and Gmail

The search engine company Google announced on Tuesday that its Workspace apps will contain generative artificial intelligence (AI) in future. The apps include Gmail and Google Docs. According to Google, you can use AI to summarise or generate texts. For example, you could give Gmail a few keywords and the programme will use them to write you a fully formulated email.

Here is the full list of announced applications:

• Drafts, replies, summaries and priorities in "Gmail"
• Brainstorming, proofreading, writing and rewriting in "Docs"
• Automatically generated images, sound files and videos in "Presentations"
• Completion, formula generation and contextual categorisation of raw data in "Tables"
• Generate new backgrounds and capture notes in "Meet"
• Workflows for the completion of tasks in "Chat"

The announcement comes shortly before Microsoft unveils the integration of its artificial intelligence into the Office suite M365. This presentation is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday. Google has been in a race to catch up since OpenAI made big waves with its chatbot ChatGPT and Microsoft integrated an enhanced form of it into its search engine Bing.

Google has presented its version of a chatbot, which is called "Bard". But unlike Microsoft's Bing, Bard is so far only available to a closed group of test users. There are probably reasons for this more cautious approach: Google has a lot more to lose in the search engine business compared to Microsoft. The company can therefore hardly afford to unleash an immature AI on the public.

You won't be able to try out the newly announced AI features for the Workspace apps as a mere mortal until further notice. Google is making the first of these - the writing tools in Gmail and Docs - available to "trusted testers" this month. Public access will only be granted later in the year.