Three features coming to Google Workspace leverage the user’s voice to retrieve information from their Gmail inbox (Gmail Live), turn ideas into actionable notes (Keep Live), and create documents on the fly (Docs Live). The additions will help keep the Workspace platform on the cutting edge, according to GlobalData, a leading intelligence and productivity platform.

Gregg Willsky, Principal Analyst, Enterprise Technology & Services at GlobalData, comments: “The new capabilities reflect a broader trend of AI becoming incorporated into everyday workflows. The features also mirror how vendors are opening their team collaboration platforms to support the multi-platform environment in which their users operate.”

Google, like all vendors in the team collaboration space, is offering AI agents and assistants that integrate into the daily flow of work. This allows users to remain head-down on the tasks they need to accomplish.

Willsky continues: “The new features fulfil that vision. As they work, users simply describe what they would like to accomplish. If the user is best served with information living in Gmail, they can tap ‘Gmail Live’. If a set of well-organized notes would do the trick, then they can leverage ‘Keep Live’. If the user’s task could be best represented with a concisely written document, they can engage ‘Docs Live’.”

In addition to reflecting how vendors are integrating AI into the flow of work, the features mirror a second trend in the team collaboration space. Specifically, rivals have acknowledged the need to open their platforms to support the multi-platform environment in which their users operate.

Willsky continues: “AI is moving from use in silos to being leveraged on a far grander scale. AI is increasingly serving as connective tissue, threading sections of vendors’ platforms such as meetings, chat, and calling; establishing links between those platforms and third-party applications used in various parts of the business such as CRM; and integrating platforms from different vendors making things possible such as attending a meeting on one platform with an external partner that uses a competing platform.”

Willsky concludes: “While users conduct their work in conjunction with the new features, AI taps into the Gmail app and, in crafting notes and documents, a variety of other apps, systems, and platforms as well. Everything happens behind the scenes, transparent to the user.”