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Google Sheets, Docs, & Slides Just Got Much, Much Smarter

3 minute read

General Google Apps Blue

Google has recently added machine intelligence to the “Explore” function within Google Sheets, Docs, and Slides. And yeah… they’re pretty brilliant now.

Ask Google Sheets questions about your data, and ye shall receive

With machine intelligence, Google Sheets can now understand language. So you can just ask Sheets a question about your data, and it will use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to translate your question into a formula and give you an answer right away.

  • Let’s say you have a data set in Sheets with total daily profits.

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  • To open the Explore feature, click on the Explore button icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
  • From here, you can get insights by asking Sheets questions directly, using real language. So you might ask it, “What day of the week has the highest total profits?”

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  • And you’ll get the answer instantly. You can also click on “See formula” to see the formula used.

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Google Docs automatically recommends related research

If you’ve ever created a document where research is important, you’re going to love this feature. With machine intelligence, Docs can now automatically recommend related research, images, and topics that tie into your project. You can also search the web and your Drive to find related information without ever having to switch back and forth between browser tabs again.

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Google Slides suggests layouts and then automatically reformats your slides for you

Not a designer? Then this might be the biggest time saver of all.

  • Let’s say we made this slide, which is pretty bland to look at:

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  • In Slides, the “Explore” function now offers layout suggestions for your slides as you’re working so that your content looks more appealing.

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  • Best of all, you don’t have to do any of the work. Just click on your selection and it’ll automatically reformat your slides for you, making them much prettier.

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Click here to watch this video on YouTube.

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