Google Workspace Update Brings a New Vids App, Generative AI Features

Google introduced new artificial intelligence (AI) features for its enterprise-focused cloud-based suite of productivity and collaboration tools, Google Workspace, on Tuesday. The announcements were made during the company’s annual Google Cloud Next event. The main highlight of the announcements was the new Google Vids app, an AI-powered video generation tool. New features have also been added to Google Meet, Gmail, Docs, Sheet, and more. Notably, the tech giant also announced new capabilities in its image-generating AI model Imagen 2.

The announcements were shared by Aparna Pappu, Vice President and General Manager, Google Workspace, in a blog post. The biggest addition was Google Vids, which the company positioned as a “video creation app for work”. It is not a video generation tool, but the AI can generate a storyboard that can be edited. Users are required to choose a style and a template to begin with, and then it picks stock videos, images, and background music to create a video based on prompts. Users can also add voiceovers by either selecting pre-set voices in the platform or using their own.

Google Meet is also getting an interesting feature. Earlier, the videoconferencing platform received a caption translation feature which allowed users to get a translated caption by manually selecting a preferred language. Now, Meet can automatically detect and translate captions in the user’s preferred language by listening to the language the user is speaking in. The tech giant is also adding 52 new languages in translated captions, bringing the total to 69 languages.

Apart from this, Google Sheets is getting a new ‘tables’ feature that can format and organise data. The company has upgraded the design of the workflow of the feature, making it more intuitive. A new set of templates has been added to fit more workspace use cases. Docs users will also get a new ‘tabs’ experience. The Search Engine maker said it will allow users to organise related information in a single document. People can also add full-screen cover images to personalise documents.

Finally, Gmail is also getting updated with new AI features. The ‘Help me write on Gmail’ mobile feature now comes with audio prompts capability, and users can speak their prompts to get an AI-generated email. The company also touted a new polish feature in Gemini in Gmail that will take rough notes and convert them into a complete email draft without any prompts. These features will be available to Gemini Enterprise, Gemini Business, and Google One AI Premium subscribers.

All of these features have either already been released or will be rolled out in the coming weeks.