If you haven’t tried it, Gemini is a very helpful assistant that already has most of our data anyway.
That last part is the argument. Gemini is useful partly because many people already keep their mail and documents in Google. Google says the app passed a billion monthly users last month, and lists the basic tier at “$0/ month with a Google Account.” Many people already use Google for email, docs and calendar. Letting the assistant read them extends a trust most of us granted years ago.
So allow it to connect with your email and docs and cal. Google calls this the Workspace connection — it’s been generally available since May of last year — and once it’s on, Gemini can “summarize, get quick answers, and find information from Google Workspace services like Gmail, Docs, and Drive,” and create and manage events in Calendar. Then set it to Gemini 3.8, and basically it can do most things you actually need out of the box.
One caveat on price. When 3.8 Flash launched two weeks ago, 9to5Google reported it live in the Gemini app for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, so the 3.8 part may cost you the Pro plan, which Google prices at $19.99 a month.
Most of what most people need from an assistant turns out to be the unglamorous middle — find that thread, put the call on Thursday — and the unglamorous middle is precisely what the company that already holds your inbox is best placed to serve. There’s little configuring to do. It’s already configured, by the fact of where your life is stored.
I’m using it nearly as much as my “Portia” — the OpenClaw I’ve been honing for ages. Read that with the right weight. Portia is bespoke and long in the making, and a stock consumer app with a few toggles flipped is keeping pace with it for a good share of what I actually need done.
