Google’s Gemini “Translates” Spreadsheets to Charts

For users of Google Workspace, there is a Gemini feature that allows users to readily visualize Google Sheets.

The Five Most-Key Takeaways from This Blog Post

• You can also get insights about data from Gemini. These insights can be predictive, such as predicting customer-churn rate for the next quarter. The insights can also be analytical. 
• Finding anomalies or issues can be a useful application of this feature. A.I. is quite good at scanning datasets and quickly getting a big-picture sense of its patterns. Therefore, it could readily tell you about any anomalies that could indicate problems with business operations. 
• No matter how good A.I. gets, remember this rule: the quality of the input affects the quality of the output. Google recommends keeping data in a consistent format, clearly labeled with nothing missing. 
• Something that could be irritating is when the chart does not come out as desired, and so the user must keep prompting Gemini until a good-enough response is given. Once the user has a chart that is up to par, Gemini can add it to the document; when this is done, the chart cannot be modified any more. 
• Business owners should see this as a tool for priming their and their employees’ insights and interpretation of the data set. Making an effort to understand your own data can still pay off. 

The Significance for Business Owners

Business owners can think of this data-visualization feature as a form of translation. Specifically, translation from one medium to the next. 

Something to keep in mind that translation is not always perfect, whether it is language or spreadsheet-to-chart. 

For this reason, it will pay off to make sure that nothing gets lost in translation. 

So, make sure you cross-reference the visualized chart with what is actually in your data set. Since you can easily search digital documents, this should not take too much time. 

How to Use Gemini’s Sheets Feature

To use this feature, click the “Ask Gemini” icon in the Sheets app’s top right corner. 

This feature is available for users with any of the following plans: 

• Business Standard and Plus
• Enterprise Standard and Plus
• Gemini Education or Gemini Education Premium add-on
• Google One AI Premium

If you are wondering whether these plans are worth the money, refer to this list that Google put out listing some features that these plans offer users. 

What Is the Best Way to Use These Features? 

Just as generative A.I. can be good for drafting and “brainstorming” (or daydreaming) for creative work, this A.I. can be good for getting perspectives on your data. 

The key point here is that the A.I. should be the jumping-off point for you to understand your data. Being too trusting with A.I.’s interpretation could put you at risk of believing an A.I. hallucination. 

Or, overreliance may lead to you missing out on key insights that personally engaging with the data could have led to. 

Encouraging yourself and employees to see A.I. as a tool for helping you form your own interpretation of data, rather than outsourcing that interpretive work yourself. 

The Last (But Not Least) Key Takeaway from This Blog Post

This feature can save you a lot of time and effort, it is true. 

However, one of the biggest mistakes that people make when using A.I. is overestimating just how much time and effort it can save them.

To return to the concern of data insights getting lost or distorted in translation from spreadsheet to charts, users should still spend time reviewing the visualization in case there is any hallucination afoot.

Otherwise, you may risk taking on faith an untrue insight that could hurt your business. 

It can be harder to cross-reference the A.I. with larger datasets, however, which is why it is so important to ensure that your data is accurate and clean when entered in Sheets. 

Other Great GO AI Blog Posts

GO AI the blog offers a combination of information about, analysis of, and editorializing on A.I. technologies of interest to business owners, with especial focus on the impact this tech will have on commerce as a whole. 

On a usual week, there are multiple GO AI blog posts going out. Here are some notable recent articles: 

• For Businesses and Other Organizations, What Makes a Successful Chatbot?
• IBM Watson vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini: How Will Each Affect Search Engines?
• Using A.I. to Find Resources for Business Owners
• How Would Restricting Open-Source A.I. Affect Business Owners? 
• The EU’s A.I. Act Has Become Law: The Implications for Business Owners (Especially American)

In addition to our GO AI blog, we also have a blog that offers important updates in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), with blog posts like “Google Ends Its Plan to End Third-Party Cookies”.