At Google's IO conference in May, executive Aparna Pappu showed off new AI capabilities for the company's Workspace productivity service.
But to make the technology truly useful, users must enter special prompts that extract optimal outputs from the company's Gemini AI model.
To solicit ideas, Google ran a contest for employees to submit “Golden Prompts” for Workspace, with prizes ranging from gold bomber jackets to cash, according to internal documents reviewed by Business Insider.
The goal: Use AI to create prompts that help Workspace customers perform tasks like filing and tracking invoices more efficiently, or surface customer inquiries that need immediate attention.
Google is introducing generative AI capabilities to Workspace to take on Microsoft's Office 365 suite, which has its own AI Copilot feature, as both tech giants try to convince enterprise customers to spend more on AI-powered versions of these productivity software bundles.
Aparna Pappu, head of Google Workspace Google
To kick off the Golden Prompt competition, Google gave cloud employees the example of a small business owner who was struggling to respond to all of the reviews his business received on Google Maps.
The “golden prompt” for this user to fill out was suggested by an employee as follows: “Every time you receive a new Google review from a customer, add it to your review sheet with a suggested response. Let us review your response before publishing it on Google Maps.”
At the end of an internal contest, seven winners were selected and awarded gold bomber jackets with a white Gemini logo on the back, as well as spot bonuses, one of the documents said.
Winning Idea
According to internal documents reviewed by BI, the winning idea was:
- This is the first prompt that allows businesses to respond to reviews on Google Maps.
- Another tool for tracking and following up on new business leads.
- Prompts to help users research information about a lead.
- Another prompt to allow users to answer questions from these customers and prospects.
- One was created to flag customers who need urgent attention.
- Another prompt helped users organize their receipts and invoices.
- And the last one helped users keep track of receipts and invoices.
Future outlook
One of the documents said the Workspace team is considering incorporating some of these prompts into the official product. A Google spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
How all of this will work may have been previewed at Google IO in May, where Pappu showed a demo of Gemini extracting a batch of invoices from a folder and automatically converting these documents into a color-coded Google Sheets spreadsheet.
She said these types of AI features will be introduced in the Workspace Labs pilot program this September.
Google is also spreading some of this know-how to the masses, publishing a guide to prompts that suggest ideas for various business areas, including marketing and HR (note: according to Google, the average word count of a successful AI prompt is 21 words).
Are you a current or former Googler with information? Have information? You can securely contact this reporter on Signal at hughlangley.01, or hlangley@businessinsider.com.
