Everything a working professional needs to actually use Google Gemini — taught top to bottom, in one session.
Know which plan you're on, which model is answering, where your data goes — and the difference between a feature that's finished and one Google still calls experimental.
By the end of this chapter: you can open Gemini on every surface you own, you know which account you're signed in with and why that changes everything, and you know the one place Google is currently moving the furniture.
Gemini isn't one app — it's the same assistant reaching you in about eight places. The web app, phone apps, a Mac app, Chrome, Google Messages, and inside Google Workspace. Start at the web app and treat everything else as the same brain showing up where you already are.
The full experience — every feature lands here first. Google supports it in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Edge. If a feature exists anywhere, it exists here.
Android, iPhone and iPad apps, plus a Mac app. Same account, same chats, same Gems. Google Messages carries it too.
Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive and Chat can each open Gemini beside the file you're already in — no copy-paste, no switching tabs.
A personal account and a work account get different features, different limits, and — as chapter seven shows — completely different data protection. Check before you type.
Getting the side panel open
Two clicks in each app. The button is always top-right, and the wording is nearly identical everywhere — which is exactly why people miss it.
Admins control this service by service. Gemini and the side panel can be switched on or off independently across Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Drawings, Vids, Meet and Chat. Missing it in one app doesn't mean you don't have Gemini.
By the end of this chapter: you can name the four consumer tiers, explain how Google actually meters usage, and avoid the one purchase mistake that costs businesses real money.
This is the chapter most Gemini training gets wrong, because the lineup changed and kept changing. There are four consumer tiers — not three — and several of them come in more than one storage size at more than one price. Prices and tiers move often, so treat every number here as "check it before you quote it."
No AI plan. Google calls this "standard limits." Real work is possible here — you'll just hit the ceiling sooner and drop to the fastest, lightest model.
The entry paid tier — 2× the standard limits. Google announced it in the US at $7.99/month, and a larger-storage variant is listed at $9.99.
4× standard limits, and the tier where the good stuff lives — Deep Research, the bigger Notebook allowances, and more. Listed at $19.99/month for the 5 TB variant.
Two tiers, $100 and $200 a month. Google describes them as 5× and 20× the Pro limits. This is for people whose whole day runs through it.
How Google actually meters you
Here's the thing nobody tells you: Google does not publish how many prompts you get. Not for any tier. They publish multipliers instead — and if you ever see a course quoting "100 prompts a day," that number was invented.
Google's own framing: no plan = "standard limits," Plus = 2×, Pro = 4×, Ultra = 5× or 20× higher than Pro. That's the whole disclosure.
In Google's words, your limit "refreshes every 5 hours until you reach your weekly limit." So there's a short cycle and a long one, and heavy afternoons borrow from the week.
Subscribers who hit the limit keep working on Flash-Lite, the fastest model. You're not locked out — you're downshifted. Knowing that removes the panic.
They say outright they "may at times have to cap the number of prompts and conversations you can have." Capacity is shared and moves. Plan around the multiplier, not a number.
If you're a business, read this part twice
The business side changed in a way that saves money — and contains one expensive trap.
Gemini AI features are now included in Business and Enterprise Workspace subscriptions. No add-on to buy. That covers the side panel in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive and Chat, Help me write, and Take notes for me in Meet.
The former paid add-ons — Gemini Business, Gemini Enterprise Legacy, AI Meetings and Messaging, AI Security — were discontinued when the features folded into the base subscriptions.
Despite the name, Gemini Enterprise is a separate paid Google Cloud product — not part of Workspace. Google states it plainly: it "isn't included with your Google Workspace subscription." Two different things, one confusing name.
Business Starter, Standard and Plus all include the Gemini app with data protections — that last part requires domain verification, and it's the whole reason chapter seven matters.
By the end of this chapter: you can pick the right model on purpose, write a prompt with all four parts, and stop confusing the names in the app with the names in the news.
Two skills, and the second one is worth more than people think. Pick the model on purpose instead of taking the default, and ask in a way that doesn't make it guess. Most bad answers are bad questions wearing a disguise.
The three models in the picker
Here's a trap worth calling out before you open it: the names in the app carry no version numbers. The picker just says Flash-Lite, Flash and Pro. The numbered names you read in the news — 3.1 Pro and so on — are the developer side. Same family, different signage. Teach what's on screen.
Google calls it "an efficient workhorse model designed for speed," ideal for summarizing and brainstorming. It's also where you land if you hit your limit.
"Balances speed and reasoning to solve a large variety of problems, from simple to complex." Start here for most real work.
Google's "most advanced model," built for complex math and coding and hard reasoning. Slower, and it spends your allowance faster — use it when the problem earns it.
The four-part prompt
Same discipline that works everywhere else, because it's not a trick — it's just telling someone enough to do the job. Miss a part and Gemini fills the gap with an assumption.
Not "help with the report." A finished thing: a one-paragraph summary, a five-row table, a first-draft reply.
Who reads this, what they already know, what decision it feeds. This is the part people skip and then wonder why the tone is wrong.
Formal or plain. Bullets or prose. Under 200 words. Say it, or you'll get the model's taste instead of yours.
This document, that thread, the file I attached. Naming the source is what turns a generic answer into your answer.
By the end of this chapter: you've built a Gem for a job you actually repeat, you know what you can load into it, and you know the one thing it can't do yet.
A Gem is a saved version of Gemini that already knows who you are and how you want the job done. If you're typing the same three sentences of background before every request, that's not a prompt any more — that's a Gem you haven't built yet.
A saved assistant with standing instructions: your role, your standards, the format you always want, the things it must never do. Written once.
Beyond instructions, a Gem carries files — from your device, from Google Drive, and from Gemini Notebook notebooks. That's how it stops being generic and starts knowing your business.
Google's wording: create a Gem in the web app and "it will appear in the Gemini mobile app and the Gemini side panel in Google Workspace." One build, every surface.
Straight from Google: "For now, Gems can't be used with Gemini Live." So your Gem doesn't come along in a live voice conversation. Worth knowing before you rely on it.
Don't start from blank. Google ships premade Gems — Career guide, Writing editor, Brainstormer — and you can copy one and edit it. Reading a well-written Gem is the fastest way to learn to write your own.
A second thing also called Gems — don't mix them up
Google reused the word, so here's the distinction in one line each.
Instructions plus knowledge. What we just built. Personal account, age 13 and up.
Custom workflows bundled into small AI apps. A different feature with different rules: 18 and up, and you can only create or edit them on a computer.
A Gem answers you. A Labs mini-app runs a workflow — and you can share it publicly, by link, or keep it private.
By the end of this chapter: you've run one real research report and built one thing in Canvas — and you know where both buttons moved to.
These two are the difference between an assistant and a colleague. Deep Research goes away and comes back with a cited report. Canvas builds the actual document, deck or app beside you. And a heads-up that will save you five minutes of hunting: both now live under the same control.
Deep Research — it writes you a report
Google's description: "in-depth and real-time research on almost any subject." You give it a question, it goes and reads, and it comes back with a cited report. The part people miss is that you get to approve the plan first.
Gemini writes a research plan and shows it to you. Click Edit plan, fix what it misunderstood, then Start research. Thirty seconds here saves a ten-minute report that answers the wrong question.
It defaults to Google Search, but you can add your own Gmail and Drive, uploaded files, and Notebook notebooks. Deselect Google Search and it researches only your sources — which is the trick worth learning.
Google's own figure, "since Gemini analyzes many sources," and longer for complex reports. Start it and go do something else — this isn't a chat you sit and watch.
Under Share & export in the Canvas panel: Share Canvas, Export to Docs, or Copy Contents. The report lands in Google Docs formatted and ready to edit.
There are daily limits, and Google won't tell you the number. They confirm limits exist on daily requests and on how many can run at once, and that Pro and Ultra get higher ones — but no figure is published. Also note: Deep Research requires you to be 18 or over and signed in.
Canvas — it builds the thing
Google's line: "collaborate with Gemini in Canvas to create or edit a doc, app, slides, or code." Instead of a wall of chat you get a working document beside you, and you edit it directly.
Write a document, build a slide deck, generate a small working app, or lay out LaTeX formulas. Real artifacts, not descriptions of artifacts.
You don't have to re-prompt for every change. Edit the text directly in the Canvas panel, and it saves as you go. Ask Gemini for the big moves, type the small ones yourself.
Export to Google Docs, Google Slides (with a PDF option), the clipboard, Google Colab for Python, or PDF for LaTeX. It leaves Gemini as a normal file.
Basic Canvas just needs you signed in. But adding AI features to an app, or creating audio overviews, requires 18 or over. Same feature, different floor depending on what you do with it.
By the end of this chapter: you've built a notebook on a real body of work, you know your source limits, and you've made an audio overview of it.
If you only take one thing from this course, take this chapter. A notebook is a workspace where Gemini answers only from the documents you put in it — with inline citations pointing at the exact source. It's the difference between "the internet says" and "your files say."
Google describes "grounded information based on your sources with clear in-line citations." Every claim points back to the document it came from — so you can check it in one click instead of trusting it.
You can upload PDFs, websites, YouTube videos, audio files, Google Docs and Google Slides. A recorded meeting and a contract can sit in the same notebook and be asked about together.
Notebooks now appear in the Gemini app and sync both directions — Google: "Your notebook content automatically syncs." Open the sidebar and click New notebook.
Straight from Google: "Notebooks can't use an existing notebook as a source." Each one stands alone — so scope them by project, not by year.
Your actual limits — real numbers, for once
This is the one place in the whole Gemini product where Google publishes hard numbers instead of multipliers. Worth knowing before you plan a big notebook.
Plenty for a single project or a small department.
The step up when notebooks become how you work, not something you tried once.
Where most serious business use lands.
The ceiling depends on which Ultra storage tier you're on.
Gemini Notebook, audio overviews included, comes with Workspace Business and Enterprise subscriptions.
Sources-per-notebook is the number that bites first. One notebook per project beats one giant notebook per year.
Audio and video overviews — the part that surprises people
A notebook can turn your documents into a conversation between two AI hosts discussing them, or into a narrated video. It sounds like a gimmick until you listen to one about your own contract on the drive to work.
Generated from the Studio panel in four formats: Deep Dive (the default), The Brief, The Critique, and The Debate. Over 80 languages; length control is English only.
The Brief when you want the gist on a commute. The Critique when you want the holes in your own document found. The Debate when a decision has two defensible sides.
Cinematic, Explainer, and Short (about 60 seconds). Explainer covers 70+ languages; Cinematic and Short are English only and 18+.
Google warns generation "may take a while" — sometimes more than 30 minutes. Don't start one five minutes before you need it, and don't demo it live without making it first.
By the end of this chapter: you know what Gemini can do on its own, which of it Google still calls experimental, and — the important one — exactly who can read what you type.
Two subjects that belong together, because they're the same question from two directions: what will Gemini do without you watching, and what happens to your words after you send them. The second one decides whether any of the first one is safe.
What it will do on its own
Be careful here — this is where courses age worst. Almost everything genuinely agentic, Google itself labels experimental. Teach it as promising, not as finished, and check the label before you build a process on it.
The closest thing to finished. Ask Gemini to do something on a schedule — daily, weekly, monthly — and it runs without you. Managed under Settings & help → Scheduled actions. Hard cap: 10 active at a time.
Google's personal AI agent for multi-step workflows — and in their own words, "an experimental feature in early development." Personal accounts only, 18+, paid plan required, and not available in the EEA, Switzerland, the UK or Nigeria.
Gemini completing multi-step tasks on the web for you. Google: "an experimental feature." US only, 18+, paid plan, English device language. You review its plan before clicking Start Task.
Google's "highest level of advanced reasoning," for genuinely hard problems. Reached by selecting the Pro model, then Thinking Level → Deep Think. Ultra subscribers only.
Connected Apps — how Gemini reaches your stuff
Formerly called Extensions. This is what lets Gemini read your mail, your calendar and your Drive — and it's off until you say otherwise.
Search, Maps, Flights, Hotels and YouTube work differently. They're automatic public-information services rather than toggles you switch — but they still require Keep Activity to be on.
Who can read what you type
The most important section in this course, and the one where the answer depends entirely on which account you're signed in with. Get this backwards in front of your leadership and you won't get a second meeting.
Google states it plainly: "A subset of chats are reviewed by human reviewers" to improve their services, and that this use extends to their AI models. Their own advice: "don't enter confidential information that you wouldn't want a reviewer to see."
This surprises people, so say it clearly: Google draws no free-versus-paid distinction in how consumer chats are handled for training or review. Upgrading to Pro or Ultra buys you capacity, not confidentiality.
Workspace is a different contract: "Your content is not human reviewed or otherwise used for Generative AI model training outside your domain without permission," and "your interactions with Gemini stay within your organization." That protection even holds between users inside one company.
Company information belongs in the work account. If you're signed in with your personal Gmail, treat it like talking in a public place — useful, but not private.
Keep Activity — the switch worth understanding
One setting controls retention, training, and half the features in this course. Here's the honest version, including the part people get wrong.
When it's on, Gemini keeps your activity in your Google Account. Default retention is 18 months, and you can change it to 3 months, 36 months, or keep it indefinitely.
The detail everyone misses: even with Keep Activity off, Google says conversations are still "saved with your account for up to 72 hours" to run the service and process feedback. Off means not used for training — it does not mean nothing is stored.
Turn it off and Gemini can no longer reach Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive, Keep and Tasks. That's the real trade — privacy for capability. Make it deliberately, not by accident.
Settings & help → Activity, click On, then choose Turn off or Turn off and delete activity. Worth visiting once just to see what's in there.