Gemini for Workspace
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Last reviewed
Jun 3, 2026
Sources
11 citations
Review status
Source-backed
Revision
v1 · 1,538 words
Add missing citations, update stale details, or suggest a clearer explanation.
Gemini for Workspace is the brand for Google's generative-AI features built into Google Workspace, the company's cloud productivity suite. It places assistive AI inside the apps that Workspace customers already use, including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Meet, and it adds a Gemini side panel inside those apps along with access to the standalone Gemini app at gemini.google.com. The offering was originally launched under the name Duet AI for Google Workspace in 2023 and rebranded to Gemini for Google Workspace on February 21, 2024.[1][2] For most of its first year the AI features were sold as paid add-ons, but in January 2025 Google folded them into its standard Workspace business plans and raised the underlying subscription prices to match.[3][4]
Google first introduced the Duet AI brand for generative AI in Workspace at its I/O developer conference in May 2023, previewing features such as "Help me write" in Gmail and Docs, image generation in Slides, data assistance in Sheets, and AI-generated backgrounds in Meet.[5] At the time these were trusted-tester previews rather than a shipping product.
The commercial product arrived at Google Cloud Next '23. On August 29, 2023, Google announced that the Duet AI for Google Workspace Enterprise add-on was generally available.[6][7] It was priced at $30 per user per month, sold on top of an organization's existing Workspace subscription, with no-cost trials offered to let businesses evaluate it before committing.[8] The launch positioned Duet AI directly against Microsoft's $30-per-user Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on, which had been priced identically the previous month.[8] At general availability the assistant worked across Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Meet, and could draft and refine text, proofread documents, generate original images for presentations, build project plans in spreadsheets, and produce custom meeting backgrounds and translated captions.[6]
The Duet AI name did not last long. In February 2024, as part of a wider effort to unify its consumer and enterprise AI under a single brand, Google retired "Duet AI" in favor of "Gemini," the name of its flagship family of models developed by Google DeepMind.[1][2] The same rebrand turned the consumer Bard chatbot into the Gemini app and introduced the Gemini Advanced subscription, so that the assistant carried a consistent name across products.
Gemini for Workspace surfaces generative AI in two main ways: as features embedded directly inside individual apps, and as a conversational side panel and standalone app that can reach across a user's Workspace data.
App-specific features include the following:[2][6]
| App | Representative features |
|---|---|
| Gmail | "Help me write" to draft and refine emails; thread summaries and suggested replies in the side panel |
| Docs | "Help me write," rewriting, and proofreading; the side panel can draft and summarize |
| Sheets | "Help me organize," automated data classification, and enhanced Smart Fill |
| Slides | Generating original images from a text prompt |
| Meet | AI-generated backgrounds, "studio" look, lighting and sound enhancements, translated captions in many languages, and automatic note taking |
The Gemini side panel was a major addition after the rebrand. Google began rolling it out to Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive on June 24, 2024, and to Gmail around the same time, powered by the Gemini 1.5 Pro model with a long context window.[9] From the panel, users can ask Gemini to summarize the document or thread they are working in, analyze its contents, and generate new text without switching tabs, because the panel can draw on the open file and on connected Workspace data.
Separately, the standalone Gemini app became a Workspace core service with enterprise-grade data protection in October 2024, covering Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, and the Enterprise editions.[10] As a core service it falls under a customer's existing Workspace agreement, and Google states that prompts and generated responses are not reviewed by humans or used to train its models without permission.[10] Later additions let Workspace users create and share custom Gemini Gems, reusable AI assistants configured for specific tasks, and surface them in the side panel.
When the product rebranded on February 21, 2024, Google replaced the single Duet AI add-on with two named tiers, Gemini Business and Gemini Enterprise, both sold as add-ons on top of a Workspace subscription and requiring an annual commitment.[1][2]
| Add-on tier (2024) | List price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini Business | As low as $20 per user per month | Workspace AI features plus access to gemini.google.com; subject to monthly usage limits |
| Gemini Enterprise | As low as $30 per user per month | Higher usage allowances, translated live captions in many languages, enterprise data protections, and copyright indemnification |
The $20 Gemini Business tier was new; it gave smaller organizations a lower-cost entry point than the $30 enterprise add-on that had shipped as Duet AI in 2023.[1][2] Both tiers carried Google's commitment that Workspace conversations were not used for advertising, reviewed by people, or used to train its generative models.[2]
On January 15, 2025, Google announced a fundamental change to how it sold Gemini in Workspace: the separate add-on was eliminated, and Gemini's AI features were bundled into the core Workspace business plans at no extra charge.[3][4] In place of the add-on, Google raised the base per-user price of those plans. The most-cited example is Business Standard, whose annual price rose from $12 to $14 per user per month, a $2 increase.[4][11] Google framed the result as a large saving for customers who had been paying for both products, noting that a Business Standard seat plus the old Gemini Business add-on had cost about $32 per user per month and would now cost $14.[3]
The price increases applied across the annual business plans:[4]
| Plan (annual billing) | Previous | New |
|---|---|---|
| Business Starter | $6 | $7 |
| Business Standard | $12 | $14 |
| Business Plus | $18 | $22 |
New customers saw the bundled pricing immediately, while existing subscribers were told the changes would take effect no sooner than March 17, 2025, or at their next renewal.[3][4] The bundle gave Business and Enterprise plans the in-app Gemini features, the Gemini side panel, the Gemini app with enterprise data protection, automatic note taking in Meet, image generation in Docs and Slides, and access to NotebookLM Plus.[3][11] Commentators read the move as a response to competitive pressure after Microsoft began folding Copilot into Microsoft 365 plans, and as a sign that the standalone add-on had seen limited uptake.[11]
Coverage of the original Duet AI launch focused heavily on its $30-per-user price and the symmetry with Microsoft 365 Copilot, with several outlets framing the two companies as locked in a head-to-head contest to charge enterprises for AI inside everyday office apps.[8] The February 2024 rebrand was generally received as a sensible consolidation, since maintaining separate "Duet AI" and "Gemini" brands had been confusing for customers.[1]
The January 2025 bundling drew the most pointed commentary. Reporters noted that by raising base prices rather than continuing to sell AI separately, Google was effectively making customers pay for Gemini whether or not they used it, and some framed the change as an admission that few buyers had opted into the paid add-on at its earlier price.[11] At the same time, analysts acknowledged that bundling brought Workspace into line with how Microsoft was packaging Copilot and that, for organizations that did want the AI features, the new pricing was substantially cheaper than buying the add-on had been.[3][11] The change also extended generative AI to far more Workspace seats than the add-on ever reached, since every qualifying business subscription now included it by default.