Gemini has some new abilities that could make it more helpful in Sheets, Google announced in a post on the Workspace blog. Now, Gemini can respond to questions about your data with details about trends or by creating static charts that you can insert into your spreadsheet as images. The new capability is rolling out now to most Workspace plans and to users on the $19.99-per-month Google One AI Premium plan.
Google says Gemini does all of this by creating and running Python code, then producing an analysis of the code’s results. For simpler requests, it may use normal spreadsheet formulas, but the bottom line is that it could save you the tedium and headache that normally comes with creating data visualizations. Before this, Gemini was limited to simpler tasks like telling you how to do things in Sheets or creating tables for you.
Google caveats that these AI-generated data visualizations are static images, so you’ll have to ask Gemini to create a new one every time you update your data. Charts created the old-fashioned way will always reflect the changes you make once they’re in place, so it may be worth investing the up-front effort for datasets you update frequently. Also, Google warns that Gemini’s accuracy can be affected by things like inconsistent data formatting or missing values, as well as prompts that aren’t specific enough about what you want.
The new feature should finish rolling out by February 20th, joining other Gemini AI features that Google added — along with a price bump — to standard Workspace Business plans recently, whether Google’s Workspace customers wanted it or not.
