Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) has changed the nature of how millions of knowledge-based workers get things done through its assistive features. How does Google do it? Watch this video for more info.
Google has integrated artificial intelligence (AI) in their collaboration and productivity tools. Their goal is not only to increase individual productivity, but also efficiency in getting your work done.
Now that they’ve rebranded G Suite to Google Workspace, we can expect a more seamless usage of these tools.
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Transcription:
G Suite is an amazing piece of technology, and it’s used in over 5 million businesses worldwide. Now, some may think it’s just a small business product, but there are large organizations all over the world, including Woolworths, one of Australia’s largest organizations, which use G suite for the whole business. So why is it overlooked by some companies? And what’s, Google’s big promise around AI and how they bring productivity into businesses using Google technology. Well, in this video, I’m going to share with you how Google promised that you can save up to 21 days a year with your productivity just by using G Suite. Google’s G Suite is literally mind-boggling.
The number of users that are on their Google drive alone has more than a billion users storing over 2 trillion files. Now, Google’s built all of their infrastructure based on Gmail docs and drive in the consumer edition of Gmail, and G Suite is the business version, which lets you use your own domain name, your own corporate controls, allows you to set it up so it works for you and your staff, completely seamlessly, just like you would using a Microsoft stack or ecosystem. And for some people who may still be using servers, I don’t know if anyone still is, but Google is a cloud-based version, which completely replicates and can replace the old way of doing IT, which is installing servers and active directory and managing machines that more Microsoft way, which is great, but it’s not quite up to speed with the cloud era.
Now, Google have a amazing set of AI and machine learning functions baked right into G Suite. And what that allows you to do is get a lot more done with your working. Now Google says that for each employee up to 21 days per year can be saved, which is literally, that’s nearly 10% of your work year saved just by using G Suite. And how do they do that? Well, they use that with a number of AI and machine learning tools to make everyday tasks much faster. There’s obviously a big focus on collaboration and Google’s Google Docs allow multiple people to work at the same time, which means that things run a lot faster.
But, lifting the lid on Google’s other tools and how they’ve baked AI into all the ways that they work really starts to show the genius of Google doing everything online and in the cloud, and allowing the AI to do the work for you. This video is part of our scale series, where we talk about organizations that have grown and scaled out of the startup and growth stage, and they’re now in scale stage. What that means is, the focus for businesses of this size are around making sure that your team are productive, making sure they’re efficient, making sure that they have the right technology tools in their hands, so that your business can achieve operational flow.
And what that means is that once your team are more productive, you’re going to get much better results for the business, but you’ll have a happier workforce, a better culture, and all around better results. I’d like to take you through some of my favorite AI features baked right into G Suite, and share with you how they can help you and your team be more productive.
Let’s first up talk about Gmail. And if you’ve used Gmail in a consumer sense, you may have noticed that down at the bottom of your phone, as your writing messages, you actually have suggested responses. They’re called smart replies. And right inside of Gmail on the mobile, but also on the desktop as well, you can use these smart replies as a quick way of getting started writing an email to someone.
Now, what I love about these is it’s just like a startup for your emails here. Sometimes, that might be all you need, but you can customize the responses as well. Now what’s powerful about these, is Google now tell us that over 20% of all emails on Google’s platform use a smart reply in some way inside their email. 20%, that’s absolutely crazy. One in five emails is now written, at least in part, by AI. And what that means is, much less time for you spending, tapping out emails with the same repetitive responses.
Google Drive and Google Cloud Search have recently been upgraded to actually show you what files you may be interested in accessing. Google Drive has the priority view, and that automatically is going to show you recent files that you’ve opened, or files that Google thinks that you may be interested in opening sometime soon. What I love about this feature is it actually talks to your calendar. And if, for example, you always have a meeting on Thursdays and you always tend to open a certain document around that time, Google’s probably going to pop up and suggest it for you. Or, if you’ve got a document attached to one of your meetings as an attachment, it’s automatically going to serve it up for you that morning.
Now, when you’re using Google Cloud Search, this is using the power of Google’s indexing right across the whole business. It’s going to search inside your mail, inside your notes, inside Google Page, it’s going to search any documents inside of Google Drive, including into PDFs and it uses optical character recognition to even read documents and serve you up results there. Google’s Cloud Search allows you to see absolutely everything in the business, and not only is it using Google’s power of its indexing, but it’s also using the intelligence of when you’re interested in opening documents.
Next up let’s talk about Google Documents. And, you’ve all used a Google doc before, they’re pretty basic and straightforward. But right inside Google documents are a number of powerful AI-based features.
Number one, you can actually use voice to text, so you can talk and just from your talking, Google will automatically transcribe your voice into the document. What that means is you can use your voice to type out documents rather than having to do them manually. Now, I love this feature when I’m dictating, because I find it much easier to just speak rather than having to type things manually. I just happen to be a slow typer, and that makes my life a whole lot easier.
One of Google’s other tools they’ve recently introduced to Google Docs is an AI-based grammar checker. Now, it doesn’t sound like much, but you’ve got to think that Google has millions and millions of businesses using G Suite, and the collective intelligence of all of that writing of all of those documents in all the different languages is being baked into the AI based grammar. What that means is, better results for you, and better results for your team when they’re working inside documents.
I know that in our business, we have a multi-lingual company. We’ve got people that are working in different locations, in different countries, even. And what that means is, we can lose some of the clarity in communication. And we want to make sure that we have things consistent, and so this is a great feature to help with that. Inside of Google Sheets, there’s some amazing AI-driven tools inside the Insights menu. Anytime you have a spreadsheet open, you can click onto the Insights button, and inside the Insights menu, you will see not only recommendations for different charts or graphs based on the kind of data that you have so you don’t have to go hunting around for them, but you can even ask Google natural language questions about your data. If you’re interested to know the average, or the sum, or the median, or the mean of a particular data set, you can literally type that or ask it in natural language.
Now, the feature hasn’t been released as of the recording of this video, but I know we’re a hop, skip, and a jump away from just talking to our spreadsheet and asking for Insights, and the Google spreadsheet using its AI and using its Google Assistant to actually share that information with us. This is the power of Google baking that into the documents with all of the processing happening in their backend data centers with their supercomputers. This is something that other solutions like Microsoft just can’t replicate. Because if you’re working in a desktop app, you just can’t have the same power of Google’s cloud plumbed down to the desktop level, in a desktop experience. Using Google Documents online allows us to harness all of Google’s AI tools, and they happen in real time, which is just absolutely impressive when you see it.
One of the other things that I love inside of Google Spreadsheets is when I go to type of formula, if I don’t quite remember exactly what I’m looking for, or I’m not sure exactly what the name of the formula is, I can start typing and Google will automatically suggest formulas that it thinks I might be interested in using. It’s automatically going to, when I put in an equal sign, guess that I might be interested in creating a sum for a certain set of cells. Now, these are all small things where Google suggestions are just going to help me to save time.
Next up, let’s move to Google’s meeting product, which is called Google Meet. If you’ve not yet done a meet, it runs in the browser, there’s no downloads, and there’s no dicking around with things like cloud storage. If you’ve ever used something like Zoom and having to worry about downloading apps, and updating them, and managing them when they crash, Google Meet runs on any browser online, and you can just join with the URL, without having to mess about.
Now, one of the great things about Google Meet is you can switch on automatic transcription of your meetings. And so you can hear what people are saying with real-time captions. And so if anyone in your business is perhaps hard of hearing, or if you just want some additional clarity, you can use that feature in your meetings right now. As the COVID pandemic unfolded earlier this year, many businesses switched to using Zoom, and have started to rack up fees for their staff needing to actually pay for the licenses. Zoom have also had a number of security concerns within their recordings and in the actual app themselves, where people have been able to jump in on meetings and that’s caused some real concerns in the security community around the use of Zoom.
Thankfully, Google has had no such issues, no such security breaches or issues with any of the meeting recordings. And if you’re even using something like Google Enterprise, you can automatically record a Google Meet and have it plunked straight into your Google drive. Super useful and convenient.
My last one to add here is that the Smart Replies feature is not only for your Gmail, it’s also come to Google Chat. And so if you’re using Google Chat, which is an alternative to other instant messaging platforms like Microsoft Teams or Slack, you can use it right across your business for rooms and for instant messaging. The Smart Replies feature is now in Google Chat as well, making it easy to communicate and keep in touch with your team, especially while you’re on the go.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my overview of the best AI tools inside of G Suite. Google are releasing more and more all the time. And as of the time of recording this video, there are some really exciting updates in store for the G Suite platform. So, make sure you keep in touch with our channel, and follow on with what we’re doing.
Now, we understand that in a scale business, your team are growing and changing and your priorities with technology are changing. Security, compliance, and making sure that everyone is using the same apps, they’re competent in using them, and that your business is well secured become absolutely paramount for a business that is no longer just in growth stage, but is now solidly in the scale stage.
If you’re interested in some support or a review of your account, or you’re interested in transforming your technology in your business and considering using Google technology, then you might be interested in a free consultation with our team. It’s complimentary, there’s absolutely no obligation to proceed with any of our services, and our team of experts have helped thousands of organizations make the switch to G Suite. Or, if you’re already utilizing G Suite, get more out of your investment, we will be able to help you for anything you need in the Google world.
If you’re interested in taking us up on that offer, jump on the link below, and you can schedule a call with our team to review your IT in your business. Until next time, take care. Cheers.
To learn more about our Cloud Support Service, or schedule an IT Systems Check, contact itGenius - the Google Workspace Experts
