Google launches Workspace Intelligence for AI across apps

Google has introduced Workspace Intelligence for Google Workspace, a system designed to give its AI tools a unified understanding of work across apps.

The launch adds a new layer across Docs, Slides, Sheets, Gmail, Drive and Chat, bringing together files, emails, chats, projects and collaboration patterns. The aim is to reduce the time staff spend moving between applications and searching for information before starting a task.

At the centre of the announcement is Ask Gemini in Chat, which Google describes as a single entry point for work inside Google Chat. Users can type a goal into Chat, and Gemini will return a result in the conversation rather than limiting the interaction to search or question-and-answer responses.

Ask Gemini in Chat can provide a daily briefing that highlights tasks, unread threads and urgent action items. It can also generate documents and slide decks, schedule meetings at times that suit participants, and find files from a written description.

Google is also expanding links with external software, including Asana, Jira and Salesforce, allowing Gemini to pull in information from outside Workspace as well as from Google's own applications.

Across Apps

Much of the update focuses on drafting and editing inside productivity tools. In Sheets, users will be able to build or edit spreadsheets with natural language prompts, with Gemini assembling multi-step outputs using data from files, email, chat and web sources.

Docs is getting new tools for business documents, including infographic creation based on company data, batch image editing for visual consistency, and automated handling of document comments. Gemini will also be able to revise documents in response to comment feedback.

Slides is due to receive a one-shot presentation feature that creates full editable decks. Google says Gemini will use organisational templates and visual styles when building those presentations.

Gmail is another major part of the rollout. AI Inbox will present a more filtered view of what matters most in a user's inbox, while AI Overviews in Gmail search will summarise relevant information from multiple email threads into a concise answer.

Drive is also being repositioned as more than a file repository. AI Overviews and Ask Gemini in Drive are now generally available, and Google is introducing Drive Projects to group files and emails around a piece of work so both colleagues and Gemini share the same context.

Context Layer

The broader argument behind the launch is that AI systems need more than access to documents or apps if they are to take on more complex work. Workspace Intelligence is intended to understand semantic relationships across content, active projects, stakeholders and domain knowledge within an organisation.

That context is then used to support what Google calls information gathering, situational awareness and personalisation. In practice, this means surfacing relevant material automatically, identifying pressing actions and adapting outputs to a user's style, tone and formatting habits.

Yulie Kwon Kim, Vice President, Product - Workspace, set out that position in the announcement. "We believe AI should help you get things done. It should understand what projects are most important and how to prioritize work. It should understand the key stakeholders, and which information will be most helpful to accomplish any task," Kim said.

She also described the new system as a shift away from isolated app functions. "Workspace Intelligence delivers unified, real-time understanding to power agentic work - it does more than just connect to your apps and pull from your data to create an output. It is a secure, dynamic system that inherently understands complex semantic relationships within your Workspace apps (such as Docs, Slides, or Gmail) content, your active projects, your collaborators, and your organization's domain knowledge," she said.

Security Focus

Google paired the product launch with a strong emphasis on data control. Workspace Intelligence runs on the same security and compliance infrastructure as the rest of Google Workspace.

Customer data handled through the system is not reviewed by humans, used for advertising, or used to train AI models outside Workspace without permission. Admin controls will be included so organisations can manage how the tools are used internally.

For regulated sectors and multinational organisations, customers can restrict data processing and storage to the US and EU. Google said more countries are planned, including Germany and India, and added that client-side encryption allows customers to block access to sensitive information from agents or other parties, including Google itself.

The launch reflects growing competition among large workplace software providers to move AI beyond chat assistants and into task completion inside business workflows. Google's approach is to make context from Workspace data the basis for those actions, with Chat, Gmail, Drive and content creation tools all tied into the same system.

"This means that no matter whether it's generated and used by your people or your agents, your data is your data. It is not reviewed by humans, used for ads, or used to train AI models outside of Workspace without your permission," Kim said.