Google Finally Gets It Right with Workspace Gemini Integration – Well, Almost

Google has just announced something that actually makes sense for once – they’re rolling Gemini AI into Google Workspace without making it a separate add-on. Having spent years both watching and experiencing Google’s somewhat chaotic approach to enterprise services, I can’t help but feel this is a rare moment where they’ve read the room correctly.

To be be clear, Google is making their AI tools available to over 10 million business customers across Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Meet, Chat, and their new Vids platform. They’re also throwing in Gemini Advanced and NotebookLM Plus. Sounds generous, right? Well, yes and no.

As usual there’s always catch and in this case, a price hike. Business Standard users will now pay £14 per user monthly, which is £2 more than before. But before anyone gets too worked up about this, let’s remember that Google initially wanted to charge a whopping £25 per user just for Gemini as an add-on. So while nobody loves a price increase, this is actually a much better deal overall.

The timing here is interesting. Microsoft is busy embedding Copilot everywhere it can, OpenAI is still leading by a wide margin, Anthropic’s Claude is gaining serious traction, and Google… well, Google is finally waking up to the fact that they need to make a bold move if they want to stay relevant. Making Gemini a standard feature rather than an expensive add-on is actually pretty smart. It instantly gives them a massive user base and puts real pressure on their competitors.

I’m particularly impressed with their approach to security this time around. They’ve done their homework and secured all the crucial certifications – SOC 1/2/3, ISO 27001/17/18, and ISO 42001. They’re also promising not to use customer data to train Gemini models without permission. For enterprise customers who’ve been sitting on the fence about AI adoption, this could be the reassurance they need.

Jerry Dischler, Google’s President of Cloud Applications, is promising more AI features throughout the year. That’s great, but here’s a thought – while they’re in this generous mood, how about throwing in YouTube Premium for Workspace users? It would be a unique offering that Microsoft and OpenAI simply couldn’t match and it would add genuine value for users.

Having watched Google’s enterprise strategy evolve (or sometimes devolve), this move feels like a significant shift. They’re finally treating their paying customers like, well, paying customers. The real test will be in how well these AI features actually work in day-to-day use – something that’s been a bit hit-or-miss with Gemini so far in my experience.