'AI Teammate' announced at Google I/O 2024 — your new AI-powered co-worker friend
Gemini for Workspace will bring an AI Teammate to Google's toolset.
If you've ever used an AI chatbot, you'd know it's a very singular experience. Your chatbot interacts with what an individual says or asks.
At Google I/O, as part of its Gemini for Workspace platform, the search giant shared a new feature: AI Teammate. AI Teammate basically takes that solo chatbot experience and puts the AI bot in a multi-user space, turning the AI chatbot into sort of a mock fellow co-worker.
According to Google, an AI Teammate can appear alongside others within the company in chat groups, emails, and documents just as any other employee would. The AI Teammate can have an identity – at Google I/O, they showcased an AI Teammate named "Chip" – as well as its own workspace account. The AI Teammate can have a specific role in the company and carry out specific objectives.
For example, if a user asks a question in a group chat, the AI Teammate can answer the question based on what's been addressed anytime earlier in the chat group. If the AI Teammate was added to emails or files, the chatbot can also utilize that information in its answers as well. Everyone in the group chat can see the chatbot's answers, just like they could any other co-worker, and further interact with the chatbot as well.
Basically, the main selling point here is that the AI Teammate can build a knowledge base based on what the entire team has shared and not just one singular user. That AI Teammate can then distribute that information to everyone as well.
It's an interesting take on the AI chatbot experience. There has been some third-party AI wrappers that have been developed with a similar idea in mind, but Google appears to be the first of the large language model companies to introduce this feature.