Google rolls out new AI content-generation and consumption tools in Workspace

Google this week released significant AI-powered content generation and consumption updates to its Workspace productivity suite.

The company said it has expanded the availability of its Whisk image-generation model to Google AI Ultra for Business customers in 77 countries. Whisk generates new images by referencing uploaded images and text descriptions in a prompt. 

Pricing for the Google AI Ultra Workspace starts at $249.99 per month, but varies  depending on the features selected.

Google is also doubling the number of images and videos generated by Whisk and the video generation model Flow for its Google AI Ultra for Business customers. The number of credits has doubled to 25,000, the company said in a recent blog post.

Google also added a tool that can create audio versions of documents in Google Docs. A “Listen” menu item allows for the creation of the audio documents, letting users listen to them in a podcast-like format. That, Google suggested, could help in catching written errors. 

“You also have the option to customize your audio experience with a variety of voices and playback speeds to match your personal preferences,” Google explained in a blog post.

The audio option was likely adapted from Google’s NotebookLM AI tool, which creates audio summaries of long documents.

Another new feature in Google Chat will summarize unread messages in chats and private channels, saving users from having jump between windows to catch up.

Google is also previewing interface updates in Google Meet focused on hardware controllers. These changes include single-click buttons for hardware controls such as mute and hand-raise, so users can “concentrate on their meetings rather than searching for controls,” the company said.

The UI preview for Meet is being rolled out for system administrators to test before its general availability in approximately six weeks. Admins will need to activate the feature for individual users. 

That follows changes  Google made last month to the timeline and way it rolls out beta features. System administrators can control when and who can try out beta features in Workspace before general availability.