Google just announced a massive amount of upgrades, features, and enhancements at Google Cloud Next. We’ve identified the ones that will be useful for small to medium-sized businesses like yours.
We've included the rollout status for each of the newly announced updates and features, along with Google's estimated timelines. If you purchased access to Gemini before January 15, 2025, you can follow these steps to become an 'alpha' user and enjoy early access to many of these new capabilities.
Many of them center around more accessible uses for AI, from AI agents for repeatable tasks to being able to generate original content like videos. There are also important security updates to further protect your data and minor feature updates that will make everyday operations easier.
While we’ve highlighted a few key updates, many more Google Workspace features are on the way to streamline workflows, enhance audio and video creation, and more later this year.
Google Workspace Flows and Gems: Agentic AI for Everyone
Google has introduced agentic AI to Google Workspace in a way that is accessible to everyone. IBM defines agentic AI as “AI systems that are designed to autonomously make decisions and act, with the ability to pursue complex goals with limited supervision.” Generative AI is AI which is used to create original content or edit existing content, such as creating a first draft with Google Docs using Gemini.
AI agents act as personal assistants for repeated tasks, such as checking to see if images are designed to brand guidelines or intelligently sorting and prioritizing support tickets.
New Google Workspace Flows will allow you to create automated workflows with AI agents called Gems. The Flow can use multiple Gems to achieve a specific result, such as auto-responding to emails with specific keywords. This removes the need for specialized programming, and Google is working with third-party providers to integrate Flows with other popular solutions.
Status: Early access is available now with broader rollout is coming soon. You can request early access here.
Audio Overviews in Docs
The popularity of audio overviews in Notebook LM inspired Google to include this functionality directly into Google Docs. You can create complete audio versions or podcast-style overviews for your documents. This is especially handy if you want to hear what a script sounds like, or if you have a long document that needs summarizing with a podcast overview. Those of you with Spotify will recognize the podcast overview from your 2024 Wrapped, which Google provided.
Status: This will be released in the coming weeks to alpha users. If you want to do this now, you can do it with Notebook LM, which Google has rolled out to almost all paid Google Workspace subscriptions. The new feature will just remove the extra step of having to open Notebook LM to create your audio.
Create Original Video With Google Vids
Google Vids currently allows you to use stock video clips to create videos, as well as inserting your own where you have them. While this is useful, Google is about to kick vids into high gear by allowing you to create your own original video content without editing software using their powerful Veo 2 AI powered video generator. You can already create photos and charts to illustrate a particular point from within most Google Workspace apps, including Docs.
Status: Alpha customers will have access to this feature in May 2025.
Data Residency Choice
Cybersecurity concerns have kept many from adopting AI use. Google has countered this with multiple layers of security, all founded on the principle of “Your data is your data.”
Your company data is never used to train AI models outside of your own use, and multiple firewalls exist to reinforce data security. Now, you can choose the country of your data residency, so you can keep everything within the US or EU. So far, those are the only two choices, and here is how to do it.
Status: Available immediately.
More AI Assistance Options Available in Google Meet
Google Meet already has the “Take Notes for Me” functionality, which gives you detailed meeting notes. Help within Meet is becoming more intuitive, with the ability to generate summaries, ask what you missed if you join a meeting late, and more.
Status: Available later in Q2 2025.
Help Me Refine in Docs and Help Me Analyze in Sheets
By now, most of you have discovered the powerful editing capabilities of Gemini in Google Docs. Even the most seasoned writer can use the suggestions Gemini has when you click “Refine” in the Gemini sidebar. Google is taking this further by walking you through the refine process with Help Me Refine, which will step you through the process.
All the data in the world means nothing if you can’t interpret it correctly. With the new “Help Me Analyze” feature in Google Sheets, Google will be providing you with your own automated data analyst. It won’t matter how much or how little you know about spreadsheets, Help Me Analyze will help you pull the statistics and insights you need from your data.
Status: Help Me Refine will be available for alpha users later in Q2 2025. Help Me Analyze will be available later in 2025.
601 AI Use Cases
While many of these customer stories are from enterprise-level businesses, they give you an idea of the kinds of things you will be able to do with the new features in Google Workspace. Wagestream’s model of using AI to deal with basic customer queries, for example, is something you’ll be able to come close to replicating using Google Workspace Flows.
If you want to do more with Google Workspace, Google Gemini AI, or copy any of the use cases that you see using more enterprise Google Cloud features, get in touch with us. We’ve helped hundreds of businesses across America implement Google’s powerful AI features and can help your company do the same.
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