A quick-start handbook for effective prompts
Writing effective prompts
From the very beginning, Google Workspace was built to allow you to collaborate in real-time with other people. Now, you can also collaborate with AI using Gemini for Google Workspace to help boost your productivity and creativity without sacrificing privacy or security. The embedded generative AI-powered features can help you write, organize, visualize, accelerate workflows, have richer meetings, and much more, all while using your favorite apps like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Meet, and Google Slides.
This book provides you with the foundational skills to write effective instructional prompts when using Gemini for Workspace so that you can be more productive and efficient in your day-to-day tasks. You can think of a prompt as a conversation starter with your AI-powered assistant. You might write several prompts as the conversation progresses. While the possibilities are virtually endless, there are consistent best practices that you can put to use today. Find the handbook here.

You can upload a recording of a lecture, like this 117,000+ token lecture from Jeff Dean, and Gemini 1.5 Pro can turn it into a quiz with an answer key. [Video sped up for demo purposes]
High lights
The Gemini for Google Workspace Prompting Guide is designed to help users harness the power of Gemini, a large language model assistant, to enhance productivity within Google Workspace. It provides foundational skills for crafting effective prompts, organized by role and use case, to streamline workflows and automate tasks. The guide emphasizes the importance of clarity, conciseness, and specificity in prompts to ensure that Gemini accurately understands and executes requests. It also suggests providing context for more tailored results and breaking down complex tasks into smaller prompts for better manageability. By following these best practices, users can effectively communicate with Gemini and leverage AI to save time and focus on higher-impact work.
- Effective Prompting: The guide provides foundational skills for writing effective prompts to enhance productivity and efficiency using Gemini for Google Workspace.
- Prompt Components: It emphasizes considering four main areas when crafting prompts: Persona, Task, Context, and Format.
- Prompting Tips: Offers quick tips such as using natural language, being specific and concise, and making it a conversational process with iterative refinement.
- Prompt Examples: Includes various examples and scenarios across different roles like customer service, marketing, and project management to illustrate effective prompting.
Leveling up your prompt writing
This guide is meant to serve as inspiration, but the possibilities are nearly endless with Gemini for Google
Workspace. Try these additional tips to build on your prompt-writing skills.
- Break it up. If you want Gemini for Workspace to perform several related tasks, break them into
separate prompts. - Give constraints. To generate specific results, include details in your prompt such as character count limits or the number of options you’d like to generate.
- Assign a role. To encourage creativity, assign a role. You can do this by starting your prompt with language like: “You are the head of a creative department for a leading advertising agency …”
- Ask for feedback. In your conversation with Gemini at gemini.google.com, tell it that you’re giving it a project, include all the details you have and everything you know, and then describe the output you want. Continue the conversation by asking questions like, “What questions do you have for me that would help you provide the best output?”
- Consider tone. Tailor your prompts to suit your intended audience and desired tone of the content.
Ask for a specific tone such as formal, informal, technical, creative, or casual in the output. - Say it another way. Fine-tune your prompts if the results don’t meet your expectations or if you believe there’s room for improvement. An iterative process of review and refinement often yields better results.