Google has announced a suite of upcoming generative AI features for its various Workspace apps, including Google Docs, Gmail, Sheets, and Slides. The features include new ways to generate, summarise, and brainstorm text with AI in Google Docs, the option to generate full emails in Gmail based on users’ brief bullet points, and the ability to produce AI imagery, audio, and video to illustrate presentations in Slides (similar to features in both Microsoft Designer, powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E, and Canva, powered by Stable Diffusion). The announcement shows Google’s eagerness to catch up to competitors in the new AI race. Ever since the arrival of ChatGPT last year and Microsoft’s launch of its chatbot-enabled Bing this February, the search giant has been scrambling to launch similar AI features. The company reportedly declared a “code red” in December, with senior management telling staff to add AI tools to all its user products, which are used by billions of people, in a matter of months. Of all the new features, the AI writing and brainstorming tools in Docs and Gmail seem the most potentially useful.