AppsScriptPulse

AppSheet, Vertex AI, No Code

More than meets the AI: How AppSheet and the Gemini API can transform businesses

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Image credit: Google

I recently explored the transformative power of Generative AI (GenAI) and how it’s reshaping the business landscape in a thought leadership piece for my employer, Appsbroker | CTS. Drawing from my experience in Gemini for Workspace pilots and custom GenAI solutions using the Gemini API in Vertex AI, I highlighted how AppSheet, a no/low-code platform, can be a game-changer.

AppSheet simplifies the integration of GenAI capabilities, enabling rapid prototyping and tailored solutions that deliver real-world results, whilst still benefiting from integrations into Google Workspace. I believe it’s a cost-effective and impactful way to harness GenAI’s potential without blowing the budget. In the article, I share some examples and the benefits of using AppSheet for GenAI innovation.

Curious to learn more? Join me at the Google Workspace Developer Summit in Berlin on September 17th, where I’ll be discussing AppSheet integrations, Gemini Function Calling, and more.

Source: More than meets the AI: why planning ahead is vital to reap the rewards of GenAI

Solutions, AI, Forms, Sheets, Vertex AI, Intermediate

Using Google Forms and the Gemini API to automate creation of multiple choice questions (MCQs)

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This report proposes a novel learning method using Gemini to automate Q&A generation, addressing the challenges of manual Q&A creation. By integrating with Google tools, this approach aims to enhance learning efficiency, accessibility, and personalization while reducing costs.

The rapid advancement of technology has offered both opportunities and challenges to the education sector. While technology can be a valuable tool for supporting teaching and learning, concerns about its appropriate use have existed for a long time.

The education sector is witnessing an increase in AI tools, each promising to enhance teaching and learning. However, the quality of these tools varies significantly. Some are better designed and can – if used appropriately – can be beneficial, while others are poorly designed. This can make it challenging for educators to find the right solutions that meet their specific needs.

This blog post by Kanshi Tanaike sheds light on the inner workings of some commercial AI tools developed for educators. It demonstrates how these tools can use generative AI to create multiple-choice questions (MCQs) on a given topic. In this particular solution, Google Forms are used in the process, with questions and answers automatically generated by the Gemini API for the user to answer in a Google Form.

For educators who have experience with Google Apps Script, this project looks like a useful starting point to refine and create your own solution or simply used to gain insights into the functioning of similar commercial tools.

Source: A Novel Approach to Learning: Combining Gemini with Google Apps Script for Automated Q&A

Solutions, AI, Vertex AI, Intermediate

Smart replacing images in Google Slides with Gemini Pro API and Vertex AI

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Image credit: Ivan Kutil

Surely, you have also experienced having a presentation in which you needed to replace old content with new. Replacing text is very simple because you just need to use the Replace function, and you can either do it in the Google Slides user interface.

The problem arises when you need to replace one image with another, for example, if your corporate logo is updated to a new graphic design or if one of your favorite cloud services updates its icons (Gmail, blink blink ;-) It’s still somewhat bearable with one presentation, but what do you do when, like me, you have thousands of Google Slides files on your Google Drive?

This post explores a clever application of the Gemini API’s multimodal capabilities, created by Ivan Kutil. His code utilizes GenAI to automatically detect outdated logos within your Google Slides presentations. The original blog post (March 2024) used the Gemini Pro Vision API. As a sign of how rapidly this area evolves, Google now recommends switching to Gemini 1.5 Flash or Gemini 1.5 Pro.

Switching to the newer APIs is very straightforward as all you need to do is search the source code for models/gemini-pro-vision and replace with models/gemini-1.5-flash or models/gemini-1.5-pro.

For Apps Script projects I lean towards Gemini 1.5 Flash as it is designed for speed. I’m also always looking to opportunities to test the GeminiApp library for Apps Script and very quickly I was able to fork Ivan’s code and use Gemini 1.5 Flash using a service account.

While GeminiApp requires some initial setup, it offers significant advantages:

  • Easy Model Testing: Experiment with various models quickly.
  • Built-in Features: Includes functionalities like exponential backoff.

If you would like to explore here is a sample slide deck you can copy which has the container bound forked code (if you don’t want to use a service account here is more information on other setup options).

Source: Smart replacing images in Google Slides with Gemini Pro API and Vertex AI

Solutions, AI, Chat, Vertex AI, Advanced

Answer questions based on Google Chat conversations with a Gemini API powered Chat app

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This tutorial shows how to make a Google Chat app that answers questions based on conversations in Chat spaces with generative AI powered by Vertex AI with Gemini. The Chat app uses the Google Workspace Events API plus Pub/Sub to recognize and answer questions posted in Chat spaces in real time, even when it isn’t mentioned.

Here is another great tutorial from the Google Chat DevRel team, this time showcasing how the Google Workspace Events API and some new Google Chat UI elements can be used to turn a Chat space into a Gemini Pro powered knowledge base.

The sample solution will let you consume your Chat space message history into a Firestore database. The Chat app is an intelligent agent that can then monitor for new questions and make suggestions using Gemini to generate content based on the previous messages.

There is quite a bit of setup required as part of this tutorial, but it provides a solid foundation for quickly scaling this to your needs.  A demonstration and explanation of the sample app was given as part of the Google Chat apps and APIs: Build connected workflows for the hybrid workplace session at Google Cloud Next and a recording might be available soon!

Source: Answer questions based on Chat conversations with a Gemini AI Chat app  |  Google Chat  |  Google for Developers

Solutions, AI, Sheets, Vertex AI, V8, Advanced

I challenged Gemini to a game of battleship in Google Sheets. Here’s what happened 🚢

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I tried to see if an AI that’s good at writing could also make smart moves in a game. I chose Battleship and set it up in Google Sheets to play against Gemini, the AI. The result was mixed. On one hand, yes, Gemini could play the game. It followed the basic rules and even managed to sink some of my ships. This was a big deal, especially since it took me a ridiculous number of days of coding to get there, and I nearly gave up at one point.

Dmitry Kostyuk has shared a blog post detailing his experiment pitting the Gemini API  against himself in a game of Battleship. As explained by Dmitry  while Gemini could follow the rules and even sink some ships, it needed help to avoid basic mistakes, revealing that AI still has room to grow in the realm of strategic games.

Dmitry built the game in Google Sheets and the source code is linked from the post. To guide Gemini, Kostyuk crafted detailed prompts outlining the game’s mechanics and decision-making logic. However, he encountered challenges due to Gemini’s limitations in providing strategic responses. Despite these hurdles, the project yielded valuable insights into prompting techniques for AI decision-making.

Source: I Challenged Gemini to a Game of Battleship. Here’s What Happened.

Add-on, Solutions, AI, Slides, Vertex AI, Advanced

Boost your presentations with AI: A Google Apps Script tutorial for a Google Slides reviewer assistant

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The Slides Advisor project is an open source, Google Workspace Add-On that uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to review and give feedback on your presentations, whenever you need it. The project uses Google’s Gemini API image and text processing features to analyze your Google Slides against a set of guidelines and lets you know how you are doing against those guidelines. Even better, you can customize those guidelines to follow your organization’s recommendations, or remind you to improve your presentations based on rules you define for yourself.

We’ve all been there: scrambling to cram too much information onto a single slide. But what if you had an AI assistant to give your presentations a once-over?

The Slides Advisor is a free, open-source Google Workspace Add-on for Google Slides that uses the power of AI to analyze your presentations. It checks your slides against customisable guidelines, helping you ensure they’re clear, concise, and visually appealing.

Everything you need to get started is covered in the source post by Joe Fernandez and Steve Bazyl. One of the highlights for me is seeing how you can setup a service account to access the Gemini AI API with Google Apps Script. The post also covers how you can modify the prompt you use to get different responses from Gemini.

Source: Build an AI Slides Reviewer with Gemini  |  Google AI for Developers

Solutions, AI, Drive, Vertex AI, Intermediate

How to automatically rename files in Google Drive with Apps Script and the Vertex AI Gemini API

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Quickly rename files in Google Drive with Apps Script and Google Gemini AI. The script will automatically rename the files with a descriptive name based on the image content.

Amit Agarwal is celebrating 20 years of ‘Digital Inspiration’, one of my go to resources for Google Workspace tech tips, tutorials and how-to guides. This recent post from Amit is a great example of the types of solutions he regularly shares. This time Amit is looking at how the Generative AI capabilities of the Gemini API can be used to help rename images in Google Drive. To achieve this there Amit shares handy Apps Script snippets for finding images in a Google Drive folder, grabbing the thumbnail images as Base64 encoded strings before calling the Gemini Pro Vision API to get suggested filenames with the prompt:

Analyze the image content and propose a concise, descriptive filename in 5-15 words without providing any explanation or additional text. Use spaces instead of underscores.

For this solution an API key for Gemini Pro Vision is generated in Google AI Studio (formerly MakerSuite). There are still geographic restrictions on access to Google AI Studio, but given Apps Script runs on Google servers once you have a API key you can continue to use it without having to proxy a location.

Image credit: Amit Agarwal

Adding image capabilities to the GeminiApp Apps Script library has been on my TODO. Now I’ve got an example to play with it should be easier to do .. thank you Amit Agarwal.

Source: How to Automatically Rename Files in Google Drive with Apps Script and AI – Digital Inspiration

Solutions, Drive, Vertex AI, Advanced

Automatically creating descriptions of files in Google Drive using Gemini Pro API and Google Apps Script

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Gemini LLM, now a Vertex AI/Studio API, unlocks easy document summarization and image analysis via Google Apps Script. This report details an example script for automatically creating the description of the files on Google Drive and highlights seamless integration options with API keys.

In this blog post, Kanshi Tanaike shows how you can automatically create descriptions for files on Google Drive using the Gemini Pro API with Google Apps Script. The post includes a step-by-step guide on how to set up and use the Gemini Pro API by generating a key is Google AI Studio (formerly Maker Suite). There are geographic restrictions on Google AI Studio, but you can call Gemini Pro from a Google Cloud project with a little more setup (a previous post sharing Tutorial: Respond to incidents with Google Chat, Vertex AI, and Apps Script outlines a general approach for connecting Apps Script to Google Vertex AI services.)

The post includes a couple of examples showing how Gemini can be used to provide responses to both text and visual prompts. Gemini Pro is still in public preview and as Kanshi Tanaike highlights rate limiting will likely prevent putting these solutions into production just now. At this point hopefully there is enough to start experimenting with Google Workspace integrations to Gemini.

Source: Automatically Creating Descriptions of Files on Google Drive using Gemini Pro API with Google Apps Script

Solutions, Vertex AI, Advanced

Automatic meeting minutes with Google Gen AI in Google Workspace (new opportunities with LLMs)

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Who takes the notes ? Simple question we always ask at the begining of the meeting, maybe it will be over in a near future with Generative AI. Using Meet recording, included in the Google Workspace licences, we can generate the transcript of the meeting with Google Speech to Text API and then generate the minutes.

Lots of chatter around ‘Gen AI’, but cutting through the hype and, in particular, the Platform-As-A-Service opportunities created with generally available Large Language Models (LLM) opens lots of new doors for Workspace Developers.

This example from fellow Google Developer Expert, Stéphane Giron, is an area I think has the most potential, using LLMs in Google Workspace Add-ons such as Gmail, Docs, Calendar etc. With Google’s Vertex AI LLMs there is really opportunity to create powerful solutions whilst preserving data sovereignty. Exciting times!

Source: Automatic meeting minutes with Google Gen AI in Google Workspace