You’ve heard of ChatGPT and Co Pilot, but what about Gemini? Google’s AI offering is available for businesses who are using Google Workspace. We’ve taken a look at Gemini to find out whether it’s worth the hype.
What is AI?
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, and is usually used to describe an application or bot that can provide well written, human-like answers to user questions. In the last couple of years we’ve seen AI become integrated into everything; from Google searches to customer service chats for businesses.
There have been pros and cons to the addition of AI into businesses. One of the problems is that AI chatbots are particularly good at providing an answer that follows a pattern they’ve previously seen, or that they think the user wants to see. As a result, AI can provide inaccurate information, and can easily be manipulated. AI also uses a huge amount of energy, which has many environmentalists concerned.
However, the integration of AI has also been beneficial; according to the BBC, ‘...banks are using it to detect fraud and predict changes in the stock markets…insurance companies are [using it]...to help them produce policy quotes and assess claims…and machines with the capability to identify images are helping doctors spot disease.’
What is Gemini?
Gemini is Google’s AI model, and was launched by Google a month after CoPilot was released by Microsoft, nearly four months after ChatGPT was released. Despite its later release date, it has been quickly integrated into Google’s search engine, with their AI Overviews reaching 1 billion people (even if they occasionally recommend their users to eat glue).
Google announced Gemini 2.0 in December 2024, promising that it would be their ‘most capable model yet’. Google promises that Gemini 2.0 will be able to address topics with more complexity, as well as advanced mathematics (which is something that previous iterations of AI have been notoriously poor at). Google also stated that their new feature, Deep Research, will be able to deep dive into topics and compile reports, to ‘act as a research assistant’.
How Gemini can help you at work
Just like CoPilot for Microsoft, Gemini for Google Workspace integrates with all of Google’s applications. This means that if you sign up for Gemini, you’ll get an AI assistant whether you’re working on Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides or you’re using Gmail. This could be helpful for some businesses as an integrated AI has the potential to understand all of your systems, processes and files.
Gemini can help you write everything from business proposals to blog ideas, and can use notes from meetings, previous reports or documents that you’ve written to research, create ideas and develop plans for your organisation. We expect to see more of this with Gemini 2.0, which Google seems confident will be able to handle more complexity.
Even if you’re not doing research, it is useful to have Gemini working within Google Docs and Gmail. In Gmail, Gemini can also summarise email threads, compose draft responses and create lists of action points for you and your team.
Gemini can also create custom images for your slideshows, which is great if you regularly use Google Slides for your presentation. It can even create slides for you to add into your presentation, and make suggestions about what is working well, as well as what you’re missing. Gemini can transcribe notes for meetings, and then will automatically add the transcribed notes to the meeting in your calendar, so that everyone has access to it.
Is it worth giving Gemini a go?
If your organisation is currently using Microsoft 365, CoPilot will be able to do everything that Gemini does, so we wouldn’t recommend switching operating systems.
However, for businesses that are already using Google Workspace, it might be worth trying Gemini to see if it could help support your organisation. Gemini is accessible and easy to learn how to use, which makes it perfect for businesses just starting to explore AI.
Businesses should ensure that they review security and privacy policies for AI models before integrating them into their organisation
