Gemini in Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Drive

The side panel can draft, summarise, calculate and find things without you pasting anything. Here is what each app's panel is good at, and how to check it.

One panel, four personalities

The Gemini side panel does different jobs depending on the app it is open in. The skills are the same four everywhere: draft, summarise, find, check.

Gmail: draft and summarise

Open a long thread and ask for a summary; you get the decisions and open questions in a few lines. Then ask it to draft a reply with your instructions: “Confirm Thursday, decline the discount politely, ask for the PO number.”

Two checks before you hit send:

Read the draft against the thread. Did it answer everything that was asked? Did it promise anything the thread does not support?
Check names and dates. Gemini sometimes picks up a date from an earlier message in the thread.

Docs: write, rewrite and summarise

In Docs, Gemini can draft a section from a brief, rewrite a paragraph in a different tone, shorten, expand, or summarise the whole document. It can also pull from other files in your Drive when you reference them, which is powerful and worth watching: the panel usually shows which files it used.

Habit: after any “write from my Drive” request, open the list of sources it used. If a file is there that you did not expect, check what it took from it.

Sheets: formulas and patterns

In Sheets, Gemini can write a formula from a plain-English description (“sum column D where column B says Paid”), spot trends, build a table or explain what a confusing formula does. It is very good at formulas and only fairly good at arithmetic on data it describes in words.

Always do one thing: check one number by hand. If it says “total unpaid is 4,320”, select the column yourself and look at the sum in the status bar. This takes five seconds and catches the most expensive kind of error.

The five-second check in Sheets:

Mock spreadsheet with unpaid rows highlighted and a status-bar sum of 4,320, beside a Gemini panel that produced a SUMIF formula and the same total — Select the cells yourself and read the status bar. If the two numbers match, move on.

Drive: find and ask

In Drive, the side panel searches by meaning, not just file name: “the contract with the cleaning company from last year” works even if the file is called Agreement_v3_final.pdf. You can ask questions across files: “What did we quote Henderson in 2025?”

Two cautions. Gemini finds what you have permission to see, including files shared with you that you have never opened. And its answer is a summary, not the document. Open the file before you act on anything from it.

App	Best for	Must-check
Gmail	Thread summary, drafting replies	Every ask answered; no invented promises; dates
Docs	Drafting, rewriting, summarising, pulling from Drive	Which files it used
Sheets	Formulas, patterns, explaining formulas	One number recomputed by hand
Drive	Finding files by meaning, cross-file questions	Open the source before acting

The same table as four cards:

Four cards for Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Drive, each with what the Gemini side panel is best for and the one thing you must check — One panel, four jobs, four checks.

How it looks today · Google WorkspaceChecked Nov 5, 2026

Opening the panel: on desktop, click the Gemini star at the top right of Gmail, Docs, Sheets or Drive. In the Gmail mobile app, tap the star above an open message or in the compose window.

Gmail: suggested actions include summarising the thread and drafting a reply. Choose a draft option, then edit the suggested text with your own instructions. Insert puts it in the compose box; it does not send.

Docs: Help me write appears in the panel and inline. To reference another file, type the at symbol followed by the file name in the prompt box. Sources used are listed under the response.

Sheets: the panel can insert a formula or table directly; it marks the cells it changed. Review before accepting.

Drive: the panel opens over the file list. Answers include links to the files they came from; click through.

Availability depends on your Workspace plan and what your admin has turned on.

Menus and button names change often. If your screen looks different, the skill is the same: look for the equivalent option.

Two short clips from Google Workspace. First, Gemini in Gmail:

Video: Gmail in the Gemini era: Explore the new features · Google Workspace · 1 minWatch for the summary and the suggested reply; both still need reading against the thread.Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Then Gemini in Sheets:

A worked example

Fatima is asked how much the firm quoted a client last year. In Drive she asks: “What did we quote Henderson Logistics in 2025 and in which document?” Gemini answers with a figure and a link. She opens the linked proposal, finds the figure on page 2, and notices the proposal was superseded by a revised one a week later, which Gemini did not mention. She searches “Henderson revised” and finds the real number. Thirty seconds of checking saved a wrong answer to the boss.

Try it now

In Gmail, open a long thread and ask the side panel to summarise it, then draft a reply with two specific instructions. Read the draft against the thread and count the fixes. Then in Sheets, ask for a formula on a real column and check one result by hand.

Remember: draft, summarise, find, check. In Gmail, check every ask was answered; in Docs, check which files it used; in Sheets, recompute one number; in Drive, open the source before you act.

Checking your progress…