Customers who subscribe to premium features for Google LLC’s Workspace productivity tools will get access to new features with upcoming generative artificial intelligence capabilities powered by the company’s AI model Gemini, starting with Google Vids, a new AI-powered video creation app.

Today at its Google Cloud Next ’24 event in Las Vegas, the company also unveiled new features for messaging and meetings powered by generative AI that will give users the ability to summarize and receive key takeaways from meetings and chats. New AI-powered security tools for Gmail and Workspace were also unveiled to help keep spam and malware at bay.

Google Vids

Vids can turn anyone into a storyteller by providing them with a video writer, producer and editing assistant at their beck and call.

“It can generate a storyboard that you can easily edit, and after choosing a style, it pieces together your first draft with suggested scenes from stock videos, images, and background music,” said Aparna Pappu, vice president and general manager of Google Workspace. “It can also help you land your message with the right voiceover — either choosing from one of our preset voiceovers or using your own.”

In essence, it will allow anyone to “cut through the noise” and bring their own style to the forefront. In a demo, Google showed off how it will even offer multiple different previews of potential production-worthy videos that could be chosen from and cut together, allowing for a collaborative editing experience with the AI assistant.

As a new feature, Vids will join other productivity tools such as Docs, Sheets and Slides and can even share a similar interface and collaboration interface right in the browser. Users can import images, video and audio from projects from their Google storage in order to enhance their work and use simple prompts to create vivid and compelling video clips.

Vids arrives in June and will be available through Workspace Labs, a program that allows users to try out new AI features for Google products before they’re available to the public.

AI elsewhere

Meetings and messaging are getting AI features that will allow users to have an AI assistant to take notes automatically with a “Take Notes for me” capability now in preview and an upcoming “Translate for me,” feature that will arrive in June. Google’s AI translation feature will automatically detect and translate captions in Meet, supporting 69 languages. Later this year Google said it will bring on-demand summaries and translation to Google Chat.

On the security front, Google is adding new generative AI-powered capabilities to automatically classify and protect sensitive data stored on Google Drive. Using privacy-preserving AI models trained on enterprise data unique to a particular organization, the new security system can continuously evaluate and scan for anomalies to evaluate and protect existing data in Drive.

Both new messaging and security add-ons are available for $10 per month, per user and can be added to most Workspace plans.

Other improvements coming to Workspace included voice prompting and instant polish in Gmail that will allow users to speak aloud while they’re on the go with their mobile devices using “Help me write,” and convert their rough notes into complete emails with a single click. A new tables feature coming in the coming weeks to Sheets will allow users to select a template from a set of building blocks and generate a whole spreadsheet, no more starting from nothing. Tabs and personalization features coming to Docs to enhance organization within single documents instead of making it necessary to link multiple documents or forcing users to search through Drive to find notes.

Google also extended its data loss prevention controls and classification labels to Gmail in beta, which assist with detecting and blocking data breaches by monitoring data entering and exiting sensitive portions of a corporate network. The company is also working to support the most sensitive data of customers with new experimental defenses against quantum computer attacks with post-quantum cryptography in client-side encryption in partnership with Thales Group and Fortanix Inc.

Chrome Enterprise gets premium update

In addition to Workspace security improvements, Google announced the launch of Chrome Enterprise Premium, a new offering that extends its trusted enterprise browser to offer powerful endpoint security capabilities.

“Browsers are no longer just these portals to the internet and have become the new endpoint,” Parisa Tabriz, vice president of Chrome at Google, told SiliconANGLE in an interview. “Part of that is the transformation of the work environment especially over the past few years. The browser has become the place where every high-value interaction in the work environment is happening.”

New features in Premium include enterprise controls for enforcing policies to manage software updates and extensions, security insights and event reporting to support forensic capabilities for enterprise-wide visibility that can integrate with Google and third-party security solutions. It also brings context-aware access controls for Zero Trust environments and software-as-a-service and web-based apps to combat data exfiltration risks.

Image: Google