Google is expanding Gemini integration within its Workspace suite and has announced a couple of new tricks for its underrated NotebookLM tool. The first in line is the ability to create structured tables in Google Sheets with text prompts.
So far, all tables created by the AI were served in plaintext with only bold highlights for the headers. Needless to say, they looked drab and boring, lacking any character at all. There was no text formatting, or stylistic edits to the cell contents.
Now, Google has updated the “Create a table” preset in the Gemini sidebar in Sheets. On tapping it, users can conveniently substitute the core input terms and get a structured table with colorful highlights, dropdown options, and shaded cells in a few seconds.
The facility will be available to “Workspace customers with Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium add-ons and users with the Google One AI Premium subscription,” says Google.
It seems the rollout is focused on business and enterprise customers first. I have access to Gemini Advanced courtesy of a Google One AI Premium subscription, but I haven’t been able to create structured tables in Google Sheets as of today.
An underrated gem gets better
The more impressive set of updates has been reserved for NotebookLM, the AI-powered note-taking app that also doubles as a research assistant. It can now analyze YouTube videos using a simple URL copy-paste, and break down the contents in whichever form you’d like to view them.
You can further ask follow-up questions based on the topic-based breakdown offered by NotebookLM, complete with clickable links to the specific point in the video. I have tried it on a few videos of varied durations, and so far, it has worked flawlessly, even picking up details from the relatively shorter chapters in a YouTube video.
Another cool feature that will be immensely convenient for journalists, researchers, as well as students, is the ability to search across an audio file’s transcription for the specific information they’re looking for.
Furthermore, NotebookLM has also gained the ability to transform audio recordings, handwritten notes, and lecture slides into study guides. Finally, we have a sharing update for Audio Overviews, which are essentially podcast-style audio versions of a user-uploaded text file like PDFs.
So far, you could only generate these overviews with a single click, but now, they can also be shared directly using a custom URL. For folks seeking more versatility, they can also import Docs, Slides, and website links, or simply copy-paste text and get the analysis done by the underlying Gemini 1.5 model.
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