Google believes your calendar desperately needs Gemini AI

Google has been obsessed with adding its Gemini AI to every imaginable Workspace utility. Most started off as integrations in the Gemini results section, but recently, the company has kicked efforts into high gear with a new AI sidebar showing up on many services. After full-fledged Gemini integration with Gmail for Workspace customers, Google has now turned its attention to testing the AI’s potential resourcefulness in Calendar.

Google privately tests new additions planned for Workspace customers with a small audience first, through the Workspace Labs program. The company just added a new test, where Calendar picks up an additional Gemini sidebar. 9to5Google spotted this showing up as a new Gemini sparkle button toggle placed beside the Calendar-Tasks switcher in the web UI.

When activated, the Gemini sidebar shows up on the right-hand side of the screen with the familiar prompt field at the bottom, and a few suggested prompts you can click for quick access. You can ask the AI about your schedule for the day, like, when your first meeting is scheduled, or when a specific meeting happens, and how many appointments you have in total. The AI can also help with creating one-time or recurring events or giving more info about time you’ve blocked off already.

The one glaring flaw

Why AI when it’s visual already?

While these additions seem like handy improvements, regular Calendar users will know how the web UI is polished to deliver data infographically. Every event is a different color, highlighting overlaps, while grid segmentation simplifies an estimation of how long each event will take. Moreover, Assistant already excelled at creating Calendar events, and Gemini now taking over that duty is merely a rebranding of existing functionality.

Perhaps these improvements would enhance accessibility or help if you’re too busy to even look at the screen, and primarily use the AI for voice interaction. However, a button for that isn’t visible in the current test UI. Hopefully this integration brings more useful AI-powered actions, like the facility to draft emails requesting to reschedule an appointment, or summarizing interesting stats like how many hours you spent conferencing in the past week. In any case, this is a test for now and the AI’s capabilities could improve before global launch. It could also remain Workspace-exclusive after launch.