Duet AI for Workspace is here!
Kind of.
I got access to become a trusted tester for some of the new Google Workspace AI features.
This is going to be fun!
Hey friends, I’m Tasia Custode, and welcome back to my YouTube Channel where I share tech
tips, app reviews, and so much Google content, you’d think I ran the place.
Spoiler, I do not.
In this video, we are diving inside Duet AI for Google Workspace.
Let’s go!
So if you’re wondering what Google Duet AI is, you may want to check out this video
I did explaining it all for you.
If you’re already familiar, then this video is where we’re going to dive in and test
out new Google Workspace IA features.
Specifically, we’re jumping into new AI features inside Gmail, Docs, and then I’ll
highlight some expected features in Sheets, Slides, and Google Meet.
Did I mention I’m excited?
Something else that’s important to keep in mind is that what I’m about to show you
is still in its testing phase.
So, there will be obvious improvements as more users provide feedback.
So once Duet AI is available to you, here’s how it works and what things will look like
inside your Google Workspace.
We’ll start with Duet AI in Gmail and a feature called ‘help me write’.
I love this feature so much.
So don’t mind a lot of this being blurred, this is my personal email and I don’t want
to show anyone’s private information.
But, off the bat, Gmail looks the same as what you may be used to.
But there are hidden Duet AI features in Gmail.
We’ll start exploring these by composing a new email in Gmail.
I’ll hit compose in the top left, and I’ve made my compose window large here for ya,
and you may think your compose window looks the same, but don’t be fooled.
You now have a new ‘help me write’ icon inside your Gmail compose window.
So let’s say I want to write a follow-up email to a potential employer thanking them
for the interview.
I’ll click on ‘help me write’.
And by the way, as an aside, it doesn’t seem to matter where you have your cursor
here for this feature.
But either way, with help me write selected, I’m simply going to prompt with a follow-up
note to a potential employer, thanking him for his time today during the content creator
interview.’
Notice I’m not even prompting with ‘please write me a…’ it’s just right to the
point with that I need help writing.
So let’s hit enter or ‘create’ to the right of the prompt to see what Duet AI comes
up with for me.
Okay, so here’s a really good response that I’ve been given.
Obviously, I will edit the name and company name, but this is a great starting point for
a thank you email to a potential employer.
Maybe we didn’t talk about this specific thing, but you get the idea here.
If you don’t like the response you have a couple of options below.
You can click to recreate the response in its entirety, where a new response will be
created.
Or, you can refine the response.
Let’s click to recreate it first so we can see what that gives us.
So, here we go, we’ve got a different response where this one seems to highlight more of
my skills.
So, let’s say I like this response well enough, but maybe it doesn’t sound like
me entirely.
I’ll head down to the ‘refine’ option and in this dropdown, I’ve got a few options.
I can formalize it, elaborate on it, shorten the email, or roll the dice and see what Duet
AI gives me.
For example sake, let’s pick I’m feeling lucky and see what we get.
So it’s regenerating a response again and this one seems a bit longer.
Alright, let’s go with this and since I’m happy with this, in order to edit this we
have to hit ‘insert’ or enter.
So this generated response is added to the body of the email for me.
Here, I can edit it however I like - which we’ve even got a little generated by tagline
at the bottom here and we definitely want to get rid of that before we send this off
to a potential employer.
Delete!
But after you’ve made all your edits, you can hit send as you normally would.
You can use this help me write feature more than once in the same email by the way.
So let’s go back to this email as an example.
And this time when we click on ‘help me write’, it’s automatically giving options
to refine the response we’ve already got, or we can hit help me write again to enter
in a new prompt entirely.
So maybe I need a good subject for this email since it didn’t give me one.
Let’s see how well it does with this follow-up.
I’m just going to say ‘A subject line to go with this email’.
I’ll hit enter and see what happens.
So this is really interesting.
It’s recreated another email that doesn't really follow along exactly with what the
initial email was about, but it does add a subject line at the bottom of it.
So quick tip!
This tells me that my initial prompt should have included a request for a relevant subject
line.
So, out of curiosity, I want to try that all again and see what happens.
So here I am in my compose window and I’ve asked Duet to write a follow-up note to a
potential employer, thanking him for his time today during the content creator interview.
Include a subject line.
Aha, here we go.
We’ve got a response generated and at the bottom a potential subject line for the email.
Nice.
So this brings up 2 important things to note when it comes to this generative AI.
Number 1: the prompts you give are important.
As you just saw, the more detail we can give Duet on what we want, the better or more complete
the response.
And number 2: every time you ask a prompt you will get a slightly different response
each time even if your prompt is the exact same.
Meaning, I could ask that exact same prompt and get a different response each time.
So, keep that in mind.
If you like an initial response, save it.
I’ve gone over why this happens in some of my other AI videos which you can watch
via the links in the description below.
Help me write in Gmail also works in replies, and I’d have to assume as this AI develops,
it’ll maybe start auto-suggesting replies based on the context of the thread of emails
- but don’t quote me on that.
Instead, let’s move on to how help me write works inside Docs, because, yes, it’s available
there too.
So, I’ve opened up a new, blank document, and right at the top, I’ve got a ‘help
me write’ button.
Let’s click on that and ask docs to help me write a job description for a social media
manager position.
The applicant must have 3 years of experience.
In a matter of seconds, a job description has been created for me, including the job
title, department, reports, summary, responsibilities, and qualifications.
Again, just like we saw in Gmail, we can either recreate the entire response or refine the
response from here too.
If you’re happy with the response, click on insert to insert it into your doc where
you can edit it as you see fit.
It’s really that easy.
But you may have noticed a new little icon on our doc.
Whether you’re working on an already existing doc, or working with your newly created doc,
you’ll now have the help me write icon always available to you on the left side of your
page, on any line your cursor is on.
Meaning, whether this is a new doc or a pre-existing doc, you can use help me write to create and
update docs anytime.
So you can really get help writing anything you can think of.
And now that these prompts are available right inside our Google Workspace, we don’t have
to go out to Bard or ChatGPT.
We can stay in our groove, right inside the same ecosystem.
I just love it.
So for now, help me write is the only Duet AI feature I’ve been granted access to.
Wa waaa!
Remember, these AI features span across Google Workspace.
So, with that, let’s quickly go over how Duet AI will help you get more organized in
Google Sheets.
Instead of help me write, this is called help me organize… and here’s a sneak peek from
Google.
You’ll ask Sheets to help you organize a specific project.
The example they used in Google I/O is that you’re a dog walker and you need a client
and pet roster for a dog walking business with rates.
Instantly, with just a prompt, an entire spreadsheet is created for you based on that prompt, no
cell formatting or data entry required.
This is next level.
I feel like help me organize in Google Sheets is a video in and of itself, so as soon as
I have full access to that feature, you know I’m coming through with a video for ya.
But, Slides is going to have their own awesome AI feature called help me visualize.
So here’s another sneak peek of that for ya.
If you need to create unique images for your presentation, with Duet AI, you’ll be able
to have Slides generate images for you with just a few words.
This little example here prompts Slides to generate a giraffe standing in front of the
Eiffel tower, and they even choose which type of style they’d like the image generated
in.
And then in a matter of seconds, a whole whack of images are auto-generated right inside
slides.
Yes, please.
Duet AI is also going to be found in Google Meet where you’ll be able to generate unique
backgrounds for your video calls, and create and convert meeting notes.
I know.
So purely based on the help me write feature in Gmail and Docs, it’s easy to understand
how Duet AI will make for a more efficient workflow inside your Google Workspace suite
of apps.
Remember, this was a quick demo of their early access features.
Duet AI is rolling out in its entirety sometime in 2023.
And, as soon as I get my hands on the rest of these features, you know another video
is coming your way.
In the meantime, I’ve linked to a waitlist below where you can sign up to test out these
Google Workspace AI features.
Have fun!
So what do you think of Google Duet AI and help me write?
Are you as excited to try these features as I am?
Let everyone know in the comments below.
As always, thanks so much for watching, if you liked this video, I want to know so give
it a like, a share or leave that comment below.
You can click right about here to subscribe to my channel and right here and here for
more Google content.
You know you want to!
Thanks for watching, and see ya next time!