You can stop copying things between Gmail, Docs and Drive. Since September 2, the Gemini side panel in one Google app can build things in the others.
Read a client thread in Gmail, get a project tracker built as a new spreadsheet, saved straight into Drive. Sit in a Doc, and the proposal becomes a slide deck. Google posted it on Wednesday, the rollout takes up to 15 days, so if it isn't in your side panel yet it's on its way.
It's on Google AI Pro ($19.99 a month), AI Ultra, and Business Standard and up. Free Gmail doesn't get it.
What it does now (five things)
Builds files. A formatted Doc, Sheet or Slides from whatever you're looking at, saved to Drive. Gmail, Docs and Slides side panel, or Ask Gemini in Drive.
Deep research across your own stuff. Folders and threads, pulled into one report with sources. Docs side panel.
Writes and sends email from a doc or meeting notes. You get a preview card first, you edit, then it sends.
Schedules meetings from Chat. Finds the slot, asks you, then books it. This one is Ultra and the business plans only. AI Pro doesn't get scheduling. Google buries that in the plan list, so don't go hunting for it.
Tasks. "Remind me to follow up with marketing next week" goes straight into Google Tasks.
Of the five, building files is the one worth your first ten minutes. Scheduling and tasks are nice, but they save you a click, not an afternoon.
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Right. Back to it.
The first job to give it
Start in Gmail, because that's where the raw material already is.
Open a thread with a client or a project. Open the Gemini side panel. Paste:
Create a tracker for this project in a new spreadsheet. Columns: task, owner, due date, status, source email. Fill it from this thread only. Anything you're not sure about goes in a column called "check", don't guess.Open the sheet it made and read it once. Watch the due dates especially: a line like "ideally by Friday" in an email is a wish, and a model will happily write it down as a deadline. The "check" column is where you catch that. Two minutes, and you never build that sheet by hand again.
Then the second one, from a Doc: "Turn this proposal into an easy to read slide deck for [name]." That's the one that used to cost an afternoon.
Where I'd be careful
Two things.
When Gemini writes an email, it can send it too. There's a preview card, and I'd read it every single time. The habit that kills you is tapping through it. It drafts, you judge, that's the deal.
And it's English only for now.
Make it stick
The Drive prompt works off folders. "Build the update deck from this folder" only works if the folder is the project. So one folder per client or project, and everything about it lives in there: brief, emails you've saved, the numbers, the last deck. That's the whole setup. Not only does Gemini get better at the job, you also stop hunting for files yourself.
That's one tracker you'll never copy together by hand again. An owner's week is thirty of those.
If you own a business and want the boring work off your plate, that's what Run On Claude is for. Every repeat job you'd hire for, set up on Claude so it runs on autopilot, with the install files. You keep the decisions. Owners only. $147 a month until member 50.
Quick one.
Which Google app do you live in, Gmail, Docs or Sheets? Hit reply, it decides what I cover next.
Talk soon,
Zephyr
