How to use Gemini in Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Drive: plans, smart features, the side panel and privacy

Gemini lives in two places in Google’s productivity apps. It is built into Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive, where it summarizes, drafts and edits inside the file you have open. And from the Gemini app you can reach into Gmail and Drive with an @ mention to ask questions about your mail and files. What you can use depends on your plan and on a privacy setting many people never notice. This tutorial covers who gets what, how to switch it on, how to use each app and how to turn it off, using Google’s own help pages and plan pages as of October 2026.

What you need

• A Google Account. A personal Gmail account works for some features. A work or school account works if your organization’s Workspace edition includes Gemini and your administrator has enabled it.
• The right plan for the features you want. Free personal accounts get Gmail summaries everywhere, and Help me write and Suggested Replies in the US. Most other features need a Google AI plan or an eligible Workspace plan (see the table below).
• Workspace smart features turned on. Step 1 shows where the setting is.

Who gets Gemini in Google’s apps

Google sells Gemini in its apps in two ways: through Google AI subscriptions for personal accounts and through Google Workspace plans for businesses. Here is what Google’s US pages list as of October 2026.

Workspace prices are Google’s listed prices with a one-year commitment; Enterprise is priced on request. Google’s help pages for Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive all say you need “an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan”, while the consumer subscriptions page names only Gmail, Docs and Vids, so check before you pay if one app matters to you. Our Google AI Plus vs Pro vs Ultra guide covers everything else the plans include.

Step 1: Turn on Workspace smart features

If you see no Gemini buttons at all, start here. Google’s help page describes three separate switches:

• Smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet: older features such as Smart Compose, Smart Reply and inbox categories.
• Smart features in Google Workspace: personalization across Workspace apps, which Google says includes Gemini features.
• Smart features in other Google products: lets other Google products, such as Maps, Wallet and the Gemini app, use your Workspace data.

To change them on a computer:

1. Open Gmail and click Settings (the gear icon), then See all settings.
2. On the General tab, scroll to Google Workspace smart features.
3. Click Manage Workspace smart feature settings.
4. Turn on Smart features in Google Workspace. Turn on Smart features in other Google products too if you want to use @Gmail in the Gemini app (Step 7).
5. Click Save.

Google says these two settings can only be changed in a web browser. They are off by default in the European Economic Area, Japan, Switzerland and the UK, so people there need to switch them on first. On a work or school account, your administrator may control them instead.

Step 2: Use Gemini in Gmail

Gmail has the most Gemini features, and the most variation by plan. According to Google’s Gmail Help availability page:

Summaries appear at the top of long threads on their own. Help me write sits in the compose window: describe the email you want and Gemini drafts it for you to edit.

The Ask Gemini side panel

On plans that include it, you get a chat panel beside your inbox. Google’s steps:

1. Open Gmail on a computer.
2. Click Ask Gemini at the top right.
3. Type a request in the prompt box at the bottom of the panel and click Submit. Click More options at the top left for conversation history, Gems and settings.

Google says the panel can summarize threads, draft emails, find details such as flight times or package tracking, propose meeting times from your Google Calendar, and archive, label or star messages after you confirm. One of its example prompts is “When is my package arriving?”

Our best AI email assistants guide compares Gemini in Gmail with Copilot in Outlook, ChatGPT and Claude.

Step 3: Use Gemini in Google Docs

Google’s Docs Editors Help describes Gemini in Docs as a bar at the bottom of the document that you can switch to a side panel.

1. Open a document and click the Gemini icon at the bottom.
2. Type a prompt in the bottom bar. You don’t need to select text first. To change one part of the document, name it, as in Google’s example “Add evidence to my Research section.”
3. Review Gemini’s suggestions in the document and choose Accept suggestion, Accept all or Reject all.

For quick edits, select some text and click Refine on the floating bar. The options are Rephrase, Shorten and, under More, Elaborate, More formal, More casual, Bulletize and Summarize.

To ground Gemini in other files, click Sources on the bottom bar and choose Add from Drive, or type @ and pick a file. If you prefer a longer chat, click Switch to side panel, and Switch to bottom bar to go back. Google says matching the writing style of another document is only available through Workspace Experiments. Our best AI writing assistants guide puts Gemini in Docs beside Copilot in Word, ChatGPT and Claude.

Step 4: Use Gemini in Google Sheets

1. Open a spreadsheet on a computer.
2. Click Ask Gemini at the top right.
3. Pick a suggested prompt or type your own in the side panel and press Enter.

According to Google, Gemini in Sheets can create tables and formulas, analyze data for trends, build charts, summarize the sheet along with related Drive files and Gmail messages, and insert what it makes straight into the sheet. It can also act on the sheet: conditional formatting, pivot tables, dropdowns and checkboxes, sorting and filtering, find and replace, and freezing rows or columns. Google’s example prompts include “Create a formula that divides goals by games” and “Create a pivot table that shows the sum of sales by region.”

Google adds that Gemini works best with native Sheets files, so convert an Excel file first with File, then Save as Google Sheets.

Step 5: Use Gemini in Google Slides

1. Open a presentation and click Ask Gemini at the top right.
2. Or click Help me create a slide in the toolbar, or find it under the Insert menu.

Google says Gemini in Slides can generate new slides in your current theme, generate images to insert, summarize a presentation in the side panel, and write titles or body text when you select an empty text box and click Write a title or Help me write. You can point it at Drive files with @, as in Google’s example “Create a slide outlining the next steps from @meeting notes and @core team sync.” Adding “Use Google Search” to a prompt lets it pull from the web.

Step 6: Use Gemini in Google Drive

In Drive, Gemini works across files rather than inside one. On eligible plans, Google’s Drive Help describes:

• Ask Gemini at drive.google.com, for questions that draw on several files.
• Catch me up, a badge next to a Doc or Sheet’s name that summarizes changes and comments since you last opened it. Google says this is on Drive for the web only.
• Summary cards that can appear when you open a PDF or a video with a transcript. To hide them, open the file, click More on the card or toolbar, then Disable summary cards.
• Projects, saved sets of files, folders or emails you can keep chatting about and share. Google says these are a Gemini Beta feature for work and school accounts only.

Step 7: Ask about Gmail and Drive from the Gemini app

You don’t need to open Gmail or Drive to ask about them. The Gemini app can connect to Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Keep and Tasks. Google’s requirements are that you sign in to the app with the same account you use for Gmail, that Keep Activity is on (check at myactivity.google.com), and, if Gemini can’t reach your mail, that Smart features in other Google products is turned on in Gmail.

1. Go to gemini.google.com or open the Gemini app.
2. Type @ in the prompt box and choose Gmail, Drive or another app.
3. Ask your question using words that appear in the email or file, rather than pasting a link.
4. If the app isn’t connected yet, Gemini offers to connect it; follow the prompts.

Google’s examples include “What dates did Erik propose in the email about the Grand Canyon hiking trip?” and “Find the doc from Ashley about the neighborhood clean-up project and summarize the proposal for me in 5 bullets.” Name the app in the first prompt of each new chat; follow-ups in the same chat don’t need it.

Google says Gemini can’t see comments or images in Docs or Gmail, or pictures and videos in Drive, and may pick up an outdated email when a newer one exists, so check the sources it cites. On work or school accounts, the administrator decides which apps can connect. For more on the app itself, see our Gemini review, and for the desktop version, the Gemini app for Windows and Mac.

Privacy: what Google says it does with your data

The rules differ depending on where you use Gemini.

• Inside Gmail, Docs, Drive and the other Workspace apps, Google says it does not use Workspace data to train its generative AI models. For people on Google AI plans, it says Gemini in these apps uses your content only to answer your prompts, “doesn’t use your content to train or improve Gemini or other generative AI models” and doesn’t store your prompt or the output without your permission.
• In the Gemini app, the same Google help page says data that personal accounts share with Gemini Apps or Search “may be used for model training and improvement.” Information Gemini reads from connected apps is handled under the Gemini Apps Privacy Notice.
• Smart features may use your data to improve those features while they’re on. Turning a setting off stops that going forward, though Google says earlier learnings may persist.

How to turn it off

The single switch for Gemini inside Google’s apps is Smart features in Google Workspace. Go back to Step 1 and turn it off instead of on, then click Save. That covers Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive together. To stop the Gemini app reading your mail, disconnect Google Workspace at gemini.google.com/apps. On a work or school account, your administrator has the final say.

Our full guide on how to turn off Gemini covers Android phones, “Hey Google”, Chrome and deleting your Gemini activity.

Tips for using Gemini in Gmail and Docs

• Check before you send. Google warns that Gemini can make mistakes and surface out-of-date information. Read every draft and check figures against the source.
• Use @ to point at a file. In Docs, Slides and the Gemini app, naming the file is more reliable than asking Gemini to find it.
• Insert results in Sheets right away. Google says the conversation is lost if you reload, close the file or go offline.
• Match the plan to the app you use. If you only want help in Gmail, AI Plus may be enough. If you write in Docs every day, Google’s page lists Docs from AI Pro.

Where to go next

• Gemini profile: models, platforms and plans at a glance.
• Gemini review: what the app does and who it suits.
• Google AI Plus vs Pro vs Ultra: every plan and perk compared.
• Best AI email assistants and best AI writing assistants: Gemini against the alternatives.
• What is Gemini Notebook?: Google’s research notebook for your documents.
• Microsoft Copilot plans explained: the equivalent for Word, Excel and Outlook.
• Gemini vs ChatGPT: if you’re weighing a different assistant.
• How to turn off Gemini: every off switch in one place.