The google infusion of its gemini AI in its services continues with Google Calendar. As a person who often relies on this calendar to make sure that I arrive where I must be on time, I was intrigued by the possibilities of Gemini in this context.
It is presented as a way for Gemini to check your schedule, to find the details of the event and even to create events for you via invites in natural language. Here is the agreement, however.
Gemini in Calendar is supposed to make your life easier by simply allowing you to ask what you need. No more scrolling through endless events or manually adding things like “lunch with Sarah” (which, if I do not hit it immediately, will be lost for the void forever). Instead, you can say: “When is my next meeting with my manager?” “Add a dentist appointment for 2 p.m. Friday.” Or “When is the Cabbage anniversary (my dog)?”
It is not yet available for everyone. Currently, Gemini in Calendar is part of Google Workspace Labs. To try it, you must first register for Google Workspace Labs. This means going to the registration page, checking the right boxes, then waiting for its approval, which should not take time.
Once you are, Gemini appears in the web version of the Google calendar as a “Ask Gemini” button in the upper right corner. By clicking, it opens a panel where you can see suggested prompts or type your own request.
There is a satisfactory simplicity to ask: “What is my schedule tomorrow?” And instantly get an answer instead of clicking manually through the calendar grid as if you are decoring the old rolls.
Calendar calculations
I played with Gemini, seeing if it could achieve the birthdays of people and the meetings to come and if it could make plans for me by asking him to do things like “add a reservation for dinner for Thursday at 7 pm”, my somewhat dispersed tests showed that all have shown Gemeni capable of doing everything they claim, even if that means that some warnings.
If you hope for a complete planning of the events fueled by AI, as automatically invite people to an event, find the best time depending on the availability of each or secure a choice of choice in this place of fashionable sushi, you are always alone. Gemini can add events to your calendar, but you will need to manually invite guests. It also only works on the web, which means that mobile users will have to wait for their Dreams of Planning in AI to come true.
And, as with everything related to AI, there is the question of confidence. AI has a way of being almost right, which is sometimes worse than being completely wrong. For example, when the autocorrect changes “to meet three” in “me eating three”, it is technically exact but extremely useless. So, even if Gemini is ideal for fast tasks, I have not completely gave my calendar. I always like to know that if something is important, I put it there rather than trust an algorithm to keep my life in order.
For those who try it and decide that it is not for them, deactivate the Gemini for the calendar, leave Google Workspace Labs. There is no deactivation halfway. But honestly, unless you already have an extremely well -organized system, it is worth being tested, in my opinion. Even if it only prevents you from missing an important meeting, it could be a lifeline.
It should also be emphasized that the real magic of Gemini is not that it does something very new, it simply facilitates the use of Google Calendar. And if you need to remember the next music course in your son, this ease of use could be a real boon.
