Google Docs is letting a whole lot more of us play with its generative AI tools

AI is far from being an independent, unmanned resource to most enterprises, and is mostly playing an assistive role in the lives of tech-savvy people in its current form. Google acknowledges this, and is building on the assistive capabilities of AI through its Bard chatbot, and generative AI tools in Workspace products. The latter has been available as a limited beta, but we are now learning that testing is expanding to more users.

Google announced serious plans to bring AI utilities to Workspace products like Google Sheets, Docs, and Slides in March this year. Later the same month, the company began testing with a tiny group of initial testers — members of Google’s trusted tester program. Now, the company is expanding its tester pool tenfold, although only with users in the US. XDA notes the company sent out invites to users in Ireland and the Netherlands too, but the test could be geo-limited for now.

The search engine company should expand testing to other regions, complete with support for other languages, sometime soon. A timeline hasn’t been cemented yet, but given the pace at which AI tools are evolving, we bet you’ll be composing your next document with AI help in no time, minus the copy-pasting from ChatGPT.

Once finished, all Google Workspace customers will have access to generative AI composition tools in Gmail, Slides, Docs, Sheets, Meet, and Chat. Usage should be pretty straightforward as well, with a button called Help me write showing up on Docs. A conversational tone should suffice for most AI prompts to flesh out full documents from a one-liner, or to rewrite existing sections of text. You could also solicit assistance for proofreading and crafting creative responses using the I’m feeling lucky button, much like on Search. On other products like Gmail, AI could come in handy generating executive summaries for email threads, while on Meet, you could summon the minutes of the meeting with just a quick prompt.

All things considered, AI is the talk of tech town, and we should learn Google’s plans for Bard and AI in general at Google I/O later this week. Hopefully, a broader direction for AI’s involvement in Workspace tools will also be outlined at the event. We will fill you in on all the details as they unfold.