Yesterday, Google announced that Duet AI, its real-time AI collaborator first announced in May, is now generally available on Google Workspace for US$30 per user per month (for enterprises; pricing has not been finalized for other users). But users can request a trial at no cost, for now.
According to Google, it does the “heavy lifting”, such as creating a whole new presentation, with text, charts and images, based on content in Drive and Gmail.
“A last-minute request that once called for an all-nighter, can now be completed before dinner time,” Google touted in a press release.
Also, it promised, meetings can now be “less fatiguing and more fulfilling”. Duet AI on Google Meet aims to make you look and sound your best, with studio look, studio lighting, and studio sound. Attendees in a meeting room will also have their own video tile with their name, thanks to dynamic tiles and face detection.
Duet AI also captures notes, action items, and video snippets in real time during a meeting with the new “take notes for me” feature, and it sends a summary to attendees after the meeting. Latecomers can get up to speed with the “summary so far” feature.
If you cannot make it to a meeting, Duet AI will attend for you, and ensure you get a recap.
Google is also launching automatic translation for 18 languages; Meet will automatically detect when another language is spoken and display the translation in real time.
Further, Google announced a refreshed user interface, new shortcuts, and enhanced search for Google Chat. Users can also chat directly with Duet AI to ask questions about content in Gmail and Drive, get a summary of documents shared in a space, and catch up on missed conversations.
If users want to switch to voice from chat, they can do so right from the space where they were already collaborating with huddles in Chat. Huddles are audio-first, impromptu gatherings powered by Meet
Additionally, Google increased the membership limit of spaces from 50,000 to 500,000, allowing the largest organizations to host their entire workforce in a single space. This will be released in private preview by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Google pledged to not share Google Workspace content with other users, or use that content for training its models, without permission.
Recently, the company also announced new capabilities to help protect from cyber threats, with built-in zero trust controls, and better support for users’ digital sovereignty and compliance needs.
By the end of this year, Google announced that it will be rolling out content moderation in the admin console (which manages user data so it remains in one location rather than fragmented across multiple point solutions), giving administrators a centralized tool for incident review.
