Master Gemini in Google Docs, Sheets & Slides in 18 Min (5 Real Use Cases)

Hey everyone. All right, so today I want to share a new tutorial on using Gemini inside Google Workspace. If you're like me, you probably do all your work in

Google Sheets, Docs, Slides, and Drive.

And for the longest time, Gemini in Workspace was just really bad. So when

Google shared that they launched a new workspace update, I was pretty skeptical. I'm happy to report that

skeptical. I'm happy to report that Gemini in Workspace is much better now.

Let me show you what's improved and what still needs work across five use cases.

Researching kids summer camps, building a family budget, planning our next vacation, writing a script for an upcoming talk, and generating slides

from the script. As usual, this will be a practical no hype tutorial. So, be

sure to subscribe if you want more like this.

Okay, so let's start with Gemini in Google Sheets. If you are a parent in

Google Sheets. If you are a parent in the Bay Area, you know that finding summer camps for your kids is basically like the Hunger Games. You're competing

with every other parent out there to find and register for the best spots before they fill up. So, we have a new Google sheet open here. And let's ask

Gemini this prompt. Create a sheet of the top 10 summer schools in the Bay Area for my 7-year-old. Include these

columns and a short description. Okay.

So, step one is Gemini has created a plan for us to review. Let's take a look. So, it's already does some

look. So, it's already does some research on some summer camps and uh it also includes applying a professional color scheme. Let's say go ahead and

color scheme. Let's say go ahead and approve. And now Gemini is going to

approve. And now Gemini is going to hopefully create a spreadsheet. So,

let's skip ahead and see what it makes.

Okay. So, that took about two or 3 minutes to generate a full sheet. I do

wish Gemini showed it work more because this whole time we're just waiting here for the spreadsheet to generate. But now

we have this information here and this looks pretty good. It's got a bunch of summer camps in multiple Bayer locations. It's got the San Francisco

locations. It's got the San Francisco Zoo Camp. My kids love that. And it's

Zoo Camp. My kids love that. And it's

got a few other options here. But

there's one very important column that's missing, the price. So, let me rearrange this a little bit and add a new price column. And let's

get Gemini to research and give us the weekly price for each of these summer camps. And this is a pretty magical

camps. And this is a pretty magical feature. So all we got to do is type

feature. So all we got to do is type equals AI and let's say get the weekly price for this camp.

And Gemini will go ahead and search the web to try to find the weekly price.

All right. So this camp costs $399.

Now here's where the magic happens.

Let's go ahead and just drag this thing down all the way to the other caps and Gemini will do searches for all of these caps and find us the price. There we go.

So, being able to pull live web data into spreadsheet cells just by dragging is a pretty magical feature. And one

thing that I wish it did include though is where is it pulling the data from?

But let's try to fix that right now. So

let's say get the weekly price for this camp and include the source link too.

And there we go. And now let's pull it down. Awesome. Now we have the source

down. Awesome. Now we have the source links and we can go to these websites and verify the price. All right. So

since we're already sheets, let's move on to the next use case. And for this use case, let's find out how much it really costs to live as a family of four

in the Bay Area. So, let me start a new conversation. And the prompt is, create

conversation. And the prompt is, create a monthly budget for a family for in the Bay Area in 2026. Include typical tech income and expenses and add columns for

category, estimated monthly cost, and your notes. And just say, do searches

your notes. And just say, do searches online. Don't use my private drive

online. Don't use my private drive information because, you know, I don't want to review my actual bud budget. All

right. So, let's go ahead and submit.

And again, let's skip ahead until Gemini comes up with the plan. So, took about one or two minutes to generate a plan.

So, let's approve and let's see what it comes up with. Okay, here we have the budget that Gemini produced for us.

Let's take a look. Looks like $10,000 in income per parent. So, $2,7 income.

Mortgage $6,500.

Property taxes and everything. So,

$19,000 in monthly expenses. And the net cash flow is only $800. All right, but take a look at this. It put a note here

saying that $6,500 in mortgage is only based on a $1.3 million home. Now, I

live in a Bay Area and you cannot buy a good home for a family of four for $1.3 million. So, why don't we do this? Let's

million. So, why don't we do this? Let's

go ahead and edit this input field.

Let's use our AI formula again and let's say update the mortgage to reflect a two bed, two bath home in Palo Alto based on current market data. Include a source

link too and let's see what it comes out with. All right, so it claims that

with. All right, so it claims that based on median sale price, okay, still using the $1.3 million home. I think two bed two bath home in Palato is at least

I would say $2.5 million if not $3 million. Let's say that costs $2.5 to $3

million. Let's say that costs $2.5 to $3 million based on current market data.

Yeah, I think $6,500 is way too low for a mortgage for a home in Palo Alto.

Let's see what it comes up with now.

Okay, so I think this is much more like it. Uh $12,000 mortgage based on $2.7

it. Uh $12,000 mortgage based on $2.7 million purchase price of a home assuming 20% down at 6.5% interest rate.

Now, I bought my home when it was only 3% interest rate. So this is significantly worse. And if you add this

significantly worse. And if you add this to all these other numbers, you're looking at a much higher mortgage, right? Let's just do it right now. So

right? Let's just do it right now. So

let's say 1287.

And all of a sudden, your net cash flow is negative $5.5,000.

You know, I see a lot of tech employees with a highpaying job, a mortgage like this, and they also send their kids to private school. And if you ever lose

private school. And if you ever lose that highpaying job, which by the way is very possible now given how things are going with AI, you're stuck with these expenses that don't go away. So I

definitely recommend making a budget like this and and not following into the high mortgage and private school trap.

Now, just a quick review of Sheets. I

really like how you can generate stuff, how you can do research online, but it does take a little bit too long to actually generate the spreadsheets because it's actually searching through

your entire drive history, Gmail, web search, and more. So, I think possibly if you deselect some of the stuff, it can go a little bit faster. Right now,

it's taking me three or four minutes each time to generate a sheet, which I guess is okay if you go away for coffee, but it's a little bit too long if you're sitting here waiting for it to generate.

All right, let's move on to our next use case now, which is documents. Now, I

have a Google doc where I track all places that we went to, including Japan, France, Portugal, Mexico, and a bunch of domestic trips. So, now that we attached

domestic trips. So, now that we attached my vacation doc to this blank document, let's submit this prompt. So basically,

I want Gemini to use my vacation doc as reference, summarize my family's travel preferences, and then recommend 10 countries that we haven't visited before that we should go next. All right, so

here's Gemini's document. So the way that this works is that you have to approve its edit first. So let's go ahead and accept and let's take a look.

So it knows that we prefer multi-ity, multimotal trips. Uh we like culture,

multimotal trips. Uh we like culture, family kids nature scenic luxury and dining. And here's some places we

and dining. And here's some places we went to before. So now it's recommending a few different countries. So it's

recommending Italy, South Korea, Spain, Peru, Iceland, Australia, and more. I've

actually been to a bunch of these countries before. I just haven't

countries before. I just haven't included in my travel document, but it's pretty good, right? It's included pros, cons, top three attractions, what to watch out for, and the best time to visit.

The only way should this document because it is a travel document. There

should be some pictures to make this more interesting, right? So why don't we ask Gemini to add a relevant photo for each country recommendation. Let's

submit this. All right. So it generated the coliseum, but it generated in the AI chat instead of in my document. You

know, there's no way to actually insert in the document other than just copy and paste the image. I guess we can paste it here ourselves. So that's a little bit

here ourselves. So that's a little bit disappointing. You know, I was hoping

disappointing. You know, I was hoping that because Google owns Nano Banana that's able to insert images into the document directly, but apparently you got to copy and paste from chat. And I

also told it to add a relevant photo for each recommendation, but it pretty much only generated a single photo for Italy.

So hopefully the Google teams are working on this and this improves soon.

All right, now let's actually try to do some real work with Gemini in Docs. So I

have a talk coming up for a group of senior product leaders about how they can push their teams to be more AI native and become more AI

native themselves. And for this talk I

native themselves. And for this talk I have the following materials. So I have a bunch of material I've written in the past about how to be more AI native interview with Jeff the CPO of RAMP

about the same topic and also another article that I wrote about how your new job is to onboard AI agents. And by the way, I'll link all these articles in the description if you're interested in

reading them. In addition, I also have

reading them. In addition, I also have this style guide that I asked Gemini to make. So, this is the style for my

make. So, this is the style for my talking head v videos, right? So, it has the structure and everything else. And

the way I made a style guide, by the way, is I just pasted a transcript for a bunch of talking head videos that I made in the past into Gemini and asked it to just generate a style guide. So, why

don't we do this? The first thing that we'll do is let's say this style guide is in markdown. Please format it so that it's easier to read by applying my styles and more. And let's see how good

of a job it does in actually formatting a document. Okay, so Gemini has

a document. Okay, so Gemini has formatted our document and we have to accept all changes and yeah, this was a lot better. It's

used my heading too for each section title. It's added bullets, although it

title. It's added bullets, although it seems to have gotten confused with the number list. And overall, this looks

number list. And overall, this looks great. So, this might seem like a minor

great. So, this might seem like a minor thing, but just like copy and paste some text into a new document and then getting Gemini to apply your formatting does save a lot of time. Let's go back

to our other document now. And this is the prompt that I'm going to use. So,

let me open Gemini. Here I am getting presentation to some senior product leaders. Here's their painoint. And

leaders. Here's their painoint. And

here's a rough outline of the document and the deck. And I want you to write a talk track for this based on my attached style guide and the reference page in this document. And aim for 15 or so

this document. And aim for 15 or so slice max. And output your talk track

slice max. And output your talk track and slide copy directly in this document. All right. So this is a pretty

document. All right. So this is a pretty complicated prompt, right? It's

referencing two different articles. In

fact, let me actually attach the style guy right now.

There we go. Now we have the style guy attached. And let's go ahead and submit

attached. And let's go ahead and submit this prompt and see how well Gemini does. You know what's interesting?

does. You know what's interesting?

Unlike Sheets, Gemini doesn't actually make a plan first before making it edits. It just edits directly, which I

edits. It just edits directly, which I actually like because it saves me more time. Well, let's take a look at this

time. Well, let's take a look at this talk track now. Let me hit accept all here. And here's the talk track. Title

here. And here's the talk track. Title

slide. Here's what I'm going to say. And

intro and builder mindset, painoint, productivity gap framework. Yeah, this

looks pretty good. So, we have a pretty good talk track now. And now let's move on to our last demo which is using Google Slides. So, here I have a empty

Google Slides. So, here I have a empty slide deck just have a single slide about setting up open claw so that Gemini understands the formatting and

the style that I like and unfortunately uh Google slides can't generate full presentations yet. So we have to work

presentations yet. So we have to work with what we have and try generating a single slide at a time. So why don't we generate this five levels of AI native

slide. Let's go ahead and copy this over

slide. Let's go ahead and copy this over here and let's paste this in here. And

why don't we add our talk track as a source. Now let's say generate this

source. Now let's say generate this slide about the five levels of AI native and submit. And let's see what it comes

and submit. And let's see what it comes up with. All right. Okay, so that was

up with. All right. Okay, so that was pretty fast. I think it only took less

pretty fast. I think it only took less than a minute and it generated this pretty beautiful slide with the five levels, right? It's way better than just

levels, right? It's way better than just listing five bullet points. And I'm just curious how it made this. Well, it

doesn't really say what sources it used.

But yeah, this slide definitely exceeded my expectations.

Okay, let's try to generate another slide. Let's see.

slide. Let's see.

Why don't we generate RAMP's AI proficiency framework.

All right, so let's do this. And this

time I want to generate it as a beautiful infographic. Let us see if

beautiful infographic. Let us see if images work in Google Slides. Generate

as an infographic on this slide. All

right. So let's paste this in and let's submit again. Okay. So this is a pretty

submit again. Okay. So this is a pretty good looking slide, but it's not the infographic that I want. So we must have done something wrong. I think what we did wrong is we didn't actually turn on the create images tool. So, you got to

actually manually click on this tool, which is kind of weird, right? Because

you would think Gemini is smart enough to know that when I want an infographic, I want it as an image. But let's try this again. Let's say generate this as

this again. Let's say generate this as an infographic image. And let's put it here. And let's say put it into print

here. And let's say put it into print new slide. And we just submitted it. And

new slide. And we just submitted it. And

hopefully it will generate image this time. All right. So, it generated image

time. All right. So, it generated image pretty fast. But once again, you can see

pretty fast. But once again, you can see here that it generated the image in the chat window instead of directly on the slide. And it does look like there's an

slide. And it does look like there's an insert button here. So, let's click on this. Okay. Then it pasted the image in.

this. Okay. Then it pasted the image in.

But yeah, I mean this this is a little bit disappointing. I would say I wish

bit disappointing. I would say I wish that it would just put the image directly on the slide without having to have to physically click insert. And

also the image looks a little bit too clip arty, but uh I actually have a full video on how to make infographics that match your style and less generic and I'll link that in description too. I

think overall slides it creates beautiful looking flowcharts and diagrams, but I wish that it generated images and inserted it directly into the deck instead of me having to copy and

paste. It's the same problem with Google

paste. It's the same problem with Google Docs. All right. So now that we

Docs. All right. So now that we generated our documents, images, and sheets, let's go back into our drive, right? So this is our drive and this is

right? So this is our drive and this is the folder that I have for demo Gemini.

Let's actually ask Gemini here in drive and let's just say summarize what's in this demo folder. Okay, so it's summarizing demo folder. It says there's

six files in here. And now let's ask, hey, what are the five steps to become AI native?

There we go. So, this folder only has a few files, but imagine that you're looking for information in a folder with dozens of files or even your entire drive. It just super convenient to be

drive. It just super convenient to be able to ask AI to find and surface whatever you're looking for without having to click into the individual files. So, here's my honest take on

files. So, here's my honest take on Gemini in each product. In my opinion, Sheets is great. Pulling real-time web data into cells is generally useful. And

be able to drag across cells to fill in more data like we did for the summer cap example is pretty magical. I just wish that it filled in this data faster. It

takes a few minutes each time and it proactively listed the sources instead of me having to prompt to get them.

Otherwise, how can we trust if the data is pulling from the web is actually accurate or not?

And next, docs is pretty good, too. I love that you can attach your own docs as reference. Just remember that if you're

reference. Just remember that if you're using Gemini to generate any kind of document to always create and link a style guide. Again, the easiest way to

style guide. Again, the easiest way to make this stuff is just feeding a bunch of writing examples from yourself into Gemini and ask it to create a style guide for you. And another thing is to

always give it a bunch of reference materials. So, there's a 42-page

materials. So, there's a 42-page document that I gave Gemini along with the style guide to get it to create my talk track. And just remember that the

talk track. And just remember that the better your context is that you feed in, the better Gemini's writing is. Now,

slides, I think, needs some work. It's

great for generating individual slides like this, and they look great, but there's a lot of competitors out there like Replet and even Clockode that can generate full slide decks from scratch

already. It's also a big gap, especially

already. It's also a big gap, especially in slides that I can't generate images directly in the deck. And finally, drive is the least flashy, but might just be

the most useful in terms of finding the right information without having to click into each file. I do wish that Gemini had features to help me organize my files and folders because my entire

drive is a mess. All right, so to wrap up, I think Google has a golden opportunity here. Billions of people

opportunity here. Billions of people already live and work in Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. No other AI lab has this much personal context to

work with. And what we covered today is

work with. And what we covered today is a big step forward, but I think there's still a lot of room to improve. You

know, Google has the golden opportunity to become the personal AI assistant for the masses, but it needs to capitalize on it fast because chat GPT is catching up quickly in the space while Claude is

becoming better for knowledge work every day. Thank you so much for watching so

day. Thank you so much for watching so far and give these new Gemini features a try. Please like and subscribe if you

try. Please like and subscribe if you enjoy this practical no hype AI tutorial and you want more like this. I hope to see you soon.