Google Workspace AI is Changing the Way UX Designers Work — 3 Powerful Features you MUST know

Google Workspace AI is revolutionizing your UX Design work forever. Here are 3 powerful features for UX designers to maximize your productivity and efficiency.

6 min readJul 22, 2024

Google Workspace AI — What?

Google, one of the most powerful companies in the world, has recently launched Google Workspace with AI, which has the potential to revolutionise the way we UX designers work.

AI Google Workspace is a suite of intelligent tools that can help you:

Draft, reply, summarise, prioritise your Gmail
Brainstorm, proofread, write, rewrite in Docs
Bring your creative vision to life with auto-generated images, audio, and video in Slides

In this article, we’ll explore 3 powerful features of Google Workspace AI you MUST know to take your UX design productivity to the next level.

Let’s dive in 👇

3 Must-Know Features of Google Workspace AI for UX Designers

#1 Smart Composer (AI in Google Docs and Gmail):

Smart Composer is an AI-generative writing tool provided within Google Workspace (basically Chat GPT within Docs and Gmail).

It uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand the context of what you’re writing and suggest relevant phrases, saving you time and reducing the chance of errors.

You can now type in a topic you want to write about, and a draft will be instantly generated:

Demonstrating how Smart Composer helps write a job post.

🔶 Example:

If you need to generate an interview script for an upcoming user research project, give it a simple prompt like: “20 interview questions to find the needs, goals, and behaviours for users of a dog walking app”

You can even ask AI to edit or rewrite your writing tone and voice to match a specific email’s purpose:

You can ask AI to edit or rewrite your writing tone and voice.

🔶 Example:

Let’s say you wrote an email to provide feedback to one of your UX colleagues but it comes across as a bit harsh. 😂

No worries. Now you can use Google Workspace AI to make it land softer 👇

How Smart Composer helps rewrite an email.

The key benefits of Smart Composer include:

Allowing you to continue refining and editing the drafts
Offering suggestions for rewriting, making it easier to write a polished research summary
Helping you find the right tone and style, whether it’s for an interview script or a more formal email

🟢 This feature is especially useful for UX designers who struggle with writer’s block or find it challenging to get started on documentation.

#2 Smart Analyse (AI in Google Sheets)

Data analysis for UX designers is a time-consuming and challenging task. However, Google Workspace AI is launching a feature that helps you to analyse raw data from scratch and provides specific insights, supercharging your research productivity.

For now, Google has already incorporated several AI-powered features into Sheets that you can check out:

1) Smart Fill:

Using AI to detect patterns in your data and automatically fill in values.

🔶 Example: If you have a column of names and a column of email addresses, Smart Fill can automatically fill in the email addresses for you based on patterns it detects in the data.

2) Explore:

Allowing you to ask questions about your data and get answers in natural language.

🔶 Example: Ask “What is the average age of my surveyed participants?” and Explore will generate a chart with demographic data.

3) Formula suggestions:

When creating a formula in Google Sheets, AI can suggest formulas for you based on the data you’re working with.

🔶 Example: If you’re trying to calculate a specific percentage from your customer survey, Sheets may suggest the “percentile” formula for you.

4) Conditional formatting:

Sheets can use AI to automatically apply conditional formatting to your data.

🔶 Example: Say you have a column of numbers representing your user’s NPS score and want to highlight any cells that are 9 or above, Sheets can do that for you automatically.

5) Pivot table suggestions:

Pivot tables are a powerful tool for analyzing large datasets in Google Sheets, but they can be complex to set up.

🔶 AI can auto suggest pivot tables for you based on all the user behavior data you’re working with, making it easier to get insights from your data.

#3 Workflow Automation (Google Workspace All-in-One)

Google Workspace is revolutionizing how UX designers can collaborate on their projects with its upcoming Workflow Automation feature.

By linking all of Google’s products into one comprehensive flow, your entire design & product team can work together seamlessly and efficiently.

As UX design is evolving and expanding constantly, the KEY for you to stand out and become a sought-after Designer:

Google Meet’s AI

For example, imagine being in a design feedback meeting with your client and asking AI to transcribe the spoken words into meeting notes.

With a single command, you can have that feedback copied directly into Docs for further refinement and clarification.

Then, ask AI to transcribe spoken words into meeting notes and turn them into specific actionable bullet points 👇

AI can help transcribe spoken words into meeting notes and turn them into specific actionable bullet points.

Google Docs’ AI

Based on your feedback and notes from the last meeting, ask AI to generate a full meeting agenda that highlights all important items discussed and send it out as emails to relevant stakeholders with Gmail.

Google Slides’ AI

Simply ask AI to generate a complete Slides presentation based on the design feedback in Docs. You can then edit each slide with updated designs, saving you time and effort.

The Workflow Automation feature is set to launch soon and is a game-changer as it allows your UX designers to focus on the creative aspects of their work while leaving the heavy lifting to Google.

AI can generate a complete Slides presentation.

Summary

Google Workspace AI has the potential to revolutionize the way UX designers work and increase productivity and efficiency with 3 powerful features:

✍️ Smart Composer: Using natural language processing to suggest relevant phrases in Docs and Gmail, helps you overcome writer’s block and refine your writing.

📊 Smart Analyse: Using AI to analyse raw data and provide insights, makes research analysis faster and easier.

🛞 Workflow Automation: Linking all of Google’s products into one comprehensive flow, making collaboration on UX projects more efficient.

With these AI-powered features, Google Workspace is changing the way we work forever.

As AI technology continues to advance, we can expect to see even more significant changes in the way we work in the years to come.

Thank you for reading, see you in next one ✌️

In the meantime, check out Google’s new trailer

Trailer: A new era for AI and Google Workspace.

Let’s Connect

📥 Email hello@uxplaybook.org if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions.

Hey 👋 I’m Chris, the Founder of UX Playbook.

Here’s more about me:

👨‍🏫 I’m a Ex-Head of Design, with 10 years of experience in tech, building products & teams

🦄 I worked with Fortune 100s like Google, Nike, Coca Cola, 21st Century Fox, and startup unicorns

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 I’ve built a community of over 62,000 designers

🤝 I’ve supported over 11,000 designers with my free UX resources, blog posts, and mentorship

🚀 I’ve been the founding designer for 8 startups

💸 I previously grew my own freelance one-person UX consultancy to $26,000/month then burnt out

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