🤖 AI-powered Gmail assistant that automatically analyzes emails and drafts responses using Google’s Gemini AI
Google is rapidly integrating Gemini across the Workspace platform, bringing powerful AI features directly into the tools we use every day. While these native integrations offer incredible value, developer-led solutions provide a tantalising glimpse into the future of hyper-personalised automation, especially as we look toward the potential of the new Google Workspace Flows. This is where the real magic begins, allowing for custom agents that can handle complex, multi-step tasks.
Google Developer Advocate Zack Akil has created one such example solution that turns your Gmail inbox into a smart, automated assistant. His open-source project, the “AI-got-this-gmail-delegator,” is a Google Apps Script that uses the Gemini API to analyse incoming emails, categorise them, and even draft replies based on your own knowledge and writing style.
This project is a great example of how to combine the power of Google Workspace automation with the intelligence of modern AI. The script works by:
Analysing Incoming Emails: When a new email arrives, the script sends the content to the Gemini API for analysis.
Providing Context: The AI’s analysis is guided by a “knowledge base” that you provide in a Google Doc. This could include your role, common responses, or specific project details.
Intelligent Triage: Based on the email’s content and your knowledge base, the script decides whether the email needs a reply, requires manual intervention, or can be archived.
Drafting Replies: For emails that need a response, the script uses Gemini to generate a draft reply in your own writing style, ready for you to review and send.
The entire process is logged in a Google Sheet, giving you a complete overview of your AI assistant’s activity.
What makes this project so compelling is its practicality and customisability. By modifying the Google Doc knowledge base and the writing style prompts, you can create a personalised email assistant that understands the nuances of your work.
To explore the code and set up your own AI email delegator, check out the project on GitHub.
In this video we build a Chat app as a Google Workspace add-on with Apps Script and extend it to other Workspace applications (Calendar, Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides).
To see this new framework in action, Pierrick Voulet from the Google Developer Relations team has released a fantastic video tutorial, ‘Build a Chat app as a Google Workspace add-on with Apps Script’.
The ‘OOO Assistant’: A Practical Demonstration
The video centres on building an ‘Out-of-Office Assistant’ that can block out the user’s Calendar for the day and set a Gmail out-of-office auto-reply. The real magic is how this Chat-based logic extends into a full Workspace Add-on, available in the sidebars of Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides. This is achieved with minimal code changes, primarily by configuring the appsscript.json manifest to include:
A homepageTrigger to display a UI card in the add-on sidebar.
universalActions that reuse the exact same functions (blockDayOut(), setAutoReply()) originally built for the Chat quick commands.
The video provides a complete overview of the process, and you can get hands-on with the shared code yourself. For more technical details, check out the official Extend Google Chat documentation.
4 Approaches to extracting the body text of a Google Doc with Google Apps Script. Full Code and tutorial
Scott Donald must be one of the most comprehensive Google Apps Script writers I know. All of his tutorials are packed with information and useful tips. This recent post is no exception, as Scott dives in and shares this detailed guide on retrieving a Google Docs body text using Google Apps Script.
The tutorial explores four approaches to extracting text from a Google Doc:
DocumentApp: This approach is straightforward for basic text extraction but may not capture all elements, especially “Smart Chips.”
DocumentApp with Element Iteration: This method allows for extracting text and URLs from standard text and supports some “Smart Chips” like Date, Rich Link, and Person.
OCR Approach: This involves converting the document to a PDF, applying OCR, and reading the extracted text. It captures most displayed text but may not recognise emojis or some formula symbols.
Docs API Advanced Service: This approach utilises the Docs REST API to access text, links, and specific “Smart Chip” data. It offers more control over data extraction but may require navigating complex JSON responses.
Scott’s tutorial provides a comprehensive and practical guide to retrieving Google Docs body text using Google Apps Script. Be sure to check out the full tutorial for detailed explanations, code examples, and helpful tips. And don’t forget to share your preferred approach and any challenges you’ve encountered on Scott’s post.
Google Apps Script offers Document service for basic document tasks and Google Docs API for advanced control, requiring more technical expertise. This report bridges the gap with sample scripts to unlock the API’s potential.
Kanshi Tanaike’s latest blog post, “Unlocking Power: Leverage the Google Docs API Beyond Apps Script’s Document Service,” is a great read for Google Workspace developers. It offers a goldmine of code snippets that will supercharge your Google Docs projects. Tanaike highlights the advantages of using the Google Docs API for more advanced features and flexibility compared to the standard Apps Script DocumentApp Service. Even though the API requires a bit more technical know-how, Tanaike provides clear, practical examples to get you started.
Some of the sample snippets include:
Changing page orientation (portrait to landscape and vice versa)
Kanshi Tanaike’s post serves as a valuable resource for developers looking to expand their Google Docs capabilities. Hopefully with these sample scripts, you can start unlocking new levels of automation and customization in your Google Doc projects.
To delve deeper into the world of Google Docs API, follow the source link post.
Great news for fans of both Google Docs and Markdown! Google Docs recently acquired the ability to export documents directly into the markdown format.
This functionality extends beyond the user interface, with early indications suggesting the Google Drive API might also be capable of converting between Google Docs and Markdown. I confirmed that this could also be achieved by Drive API. This opens exciting possibilities for automated workflows.
Google recently announced in July 2024 that import and export Markdown in Google Docs. This is a user facing features, which Google announced includes the ability to:
Convert Markdown to Docs content on paste
Copy Docs content as Markdown
Export a Doc as Markdown (from File > Download)
Import Markdown as a Doc (from File > Open or “Open with Google Docs” from Drive)
Kanshi Tanaike hasn’t wasted any time in unpicking Markdown conversion capabilities using the Google Drive API. This functionality enables automated workflows for converting between Google Docs and Markdown. There are various scenarios where this can be useful, in particular, given GenAI solutions like the Gemini API often generate markdown there are opportunities to automatically convert these to Google Docs.
As part of the source post there are sample scripts: one for converting Google Docs to Markdown and another for converting Markdown to Google Docs.
For the Markdown to Google Docs it is assumed that there is already a Markdown file in Google Drive. If you have a Markdown text as a string, for example from a Gemini API response, then you can create a formatted Google Doc using the following snippet designed to be used with v3 of the Google Drive Advanced Service:
function sample3() {
// note string is tab sensitive (tabs are converted to code blocks on certain Workspace accounts)
const sampleText = `sample text 1
| a1 | b1 | c1 |
| :---- | :---- | :---- |
| a2 | b2 | c2 |
sample text 2
* sample option1
* sample option2
* sample option3
sample text 3`;
const blob = Utilities.newBlob(sampleText, 'text/markdown');
const fileMetadata = {
name: `Sample MD Conversion`,
mimeType: MimeType.GOOGLE_DOCS,
};
Drive.Files.create(fileMetadata, blob, { supportsAllDrives: true });
}
Google Workspace Add-on for Google Drive, which uses AI to recommend new names for the selected Doc in Google Drive by passing the body of the document within the AI prompt for context.
Tired of staring at “Untitled document” in Google Drive? At Google Cloud Next ’24 and I/O 2024, the Google Workspace DevRel team showcased new Apps Script samples utilizing the Gemini API for AI-powered functionality.
One such sample, “Name with Intelligence” by Charles Maxson, helps developers overcome this common hurdle. This Google Drive add-on leverages the Gemini API to suggest relevant titles for your documents, saving you valuable time and effort.
This innovative Google Drive add-on tackles the common struggle of naming untitled documents. It utilizes the Gemini API to analyse the content of your Google Doc and suggest relevant titles based on its understanding of the text. This not only saves you time brainstorming titles, but also ensures your documents are clearly named for easy searchability later.
For those interested in my GeminiApp library, you can also find the sample here.
Take Your Development Further
This is just a glimpse of what’s possible with the Gemini API and Apps Script. With a little creativity, you can develop your own AI-powered Google Workspace add-ons to streamline your workflows and boost your productivity.
I encourage you to experiment and create innovative solutions that enhance your Google Workspace experience!
Use Google Apps Script to create a custom menu that will work inside Google Sheets, Google Docs, Slides and Google Forms.
Tired of writing separate code for custom menus in Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms? This nifty Google Apps Script snippet by Amit Agarwal helps you build a universal menu that works across all these apps!
The solution is a small snippet which detects the context to see which of DocumentApp, SpreadsheetApp, FormApp, SlidesApp are available which then lets you switch to get the appropriate .getUI() method.
Check out the source post for the full code and streamline your add-on development!
Search the body of a Google Doc for a specific string/pattern and insert an image in place of it.
In this example the code is designed to sit behind the Google Doc so it is bound to it. There are 4 pieces of information to complete in order to setup the script:
searchText – this is the unique string/pattern in the Doc that you want to replace with an image e.g. “<<keyword>>“
imageURL – this is the direct link to the image in Google Drive that you wish to use in the Doc.
size – a numerical value representing the number of pixels for the image’s width/height.
hyperlinkURL – if you want the image to be clickable then provide a link for it.
I use Google Apps Script to support staff and students in my job. I enjoy dabbling with creating tools to help with automation and I freely share my learning experiences on my blog, where I also have a number of useful Google Add-ons: www.pbainbridge.co.uk
Imagine this: you recall a document about an intriguing subject but can’t pin down a specific term. It’s a common scenario where traditional search methods in Gmail or Google Docs often fall short, relying heavily on exact terms. Enter the realm of ‘semantic’ search, powered by advanced language models. ‘Semantic’ isn’t just a fancy word; it’s about understanding the meaning and context behind your words. Instead of a frustrating keyword hunt, these models interpret your descriptions, no matter how vague, to find that needle in the digital haystack.
“Code is Poetry” is the tagline popularised by the open-source blogging platform WordPress. In this post from Riël Notermans at Zzapps.nl ‘code is FOR poetry’. It’s well worth spending the time unpick what is happening in this tutorial. To help understand the implications I would also recommend watching this short video on the Google Workspace Developers channel where Riël explains how the technique can be used for other applications like knowledge bases.
Even if you are not interested in generating poetry it’s an opportunity to see how the Vertex AI Generative Language API can be used in Google Workspace, in this instance to generate text for a Google Doc using a corpus of data from your Google Drive. Follow the source link for the code and setup instructions.
There have been a number of recent updates and announcements around Smart Chips and other integrations to Google Docs, as well as Sheets and Slides. Some have just gone into the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program (DPP), whilst in the case of AppSheet smart chips for Google Docs they are generally available!
AppSheet smart chips for Google Docs
Starting with AppSheet smart chips for Google Docs if you already had the AppSheet Google Docs add-on installed you already have AppSheet smart chips enabled. More details including a link to the Workspace Marketplace Add-on are included in the related Workspace Updates post. The AppSheet smart chips are great way to integrate some of your app functionality in your Google Docs.
Preview links with smart chips in Sheets and Slides
We’ve had custom smart chip link previews for Google Docs for some time, but Google have recently added the same functionality to Sheets and Slides. If you have already developed link previews for Google Docs the good news is there isn’t much more you need to do to enable these for Sheets and Slides (mostly updating your manifest). More details are included on the updated Preview links with smart chips documentation page.
Create third-party resources from the @ menu
Finally, also gone into preview is third-party resource integration which you can use to “let users quickly create resources, such as tasks, support cases, or issues, in your service right from Google Docs. The new resource is then inserted into Google Docs as a smart chip.”. You can read more in the create third-party resources from the @ menu documentation page.
In the case of the preview features a reminder that this is your opportunity to test and give feedback to Google. Links to join and provide feedback are included in the Google Workspace Developer Preview page. Enjoy!
