Joining the generative AI gold rush, Google final month introduced plans to convey a number of AI-powered instruments, collectively referred to as Duet AI, to its Workspace workplace suite. These options will embrace automated undertaking planning in Google Sheets, the power to create pictures from textual content prompts in Google Slides, and an automatic writing instrument in Gmail and Google Docs referred to as “Help Me Write.”The AI instruments in Slides and Sheets usually are not but out there, however Help Me Write is in restricted preview; you possibly can strive it out in Google Docs or Gmail on the internet by signing up for entry to Workspace Labs along with your Google account. (You’ll be placed on a waitlist earlier than being granted entry.) Like the well-known ChatGPT, Help Me Write is a chatbot instrument that generates written textual content based mostly on prompts (directions) that you simply give it.Whether you’re an expert author or somebody who dreads having to write down in your job, the potential of AI help in your writing duties is interesting. Help Me Write can certainly write lengthy passages of textual content which are fairly readable. But its outcomes include caveats together with factual errors, redundancy, and too-generic prose.This information covers how one can use Help Me Write in each Google Docs and Gmail to generate and rewrite textual content, and how one can overcome a few of the instrument’s shortcomings. Because it’s in preview standing, take into account that there could also be adjustments to its options, and the outcomes it generates, when it’s lastly rolled out to the general public.(On a meta observe, no a part of this text was written by Help Me Write. Many articles about AI embrace a “twist” during which the creator reveals that what you’ve been studying was, in truth, written by an AI. That’s not the case right here. A serious purpose is the query of copyright — who owns the phrases which are generated by AI, particularly if its service is free for public use?)Use Help Me Write to generate textual contentOnce you’ve been granted entry to Workspace Labs, begin a brand new clean doc in Docs. At the highest of the doc is a button that features a pencil with a + signal and the phrases “Help me write.” Or, in the event you open an present doc, you’ll see a small button with the “pencil +” icon on the left fringe of your doc web page. In Gmail, the identical icon seems on the toolbar alongside the underside of the compose window. IDG
From left to proper, the “Help me write” button because it seems in a brand new Google Doc, an present Google Doc, and in Gmail. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
Click this Help me write button. In Docs, the “Help me write” panel opens. In Gmail, a textual content entry bar seems on the backside of the compose window.Inside the panel or bar, you’ll see a number of recommendations for prompts — phrases that describe the topic and type of writing you prefer to Help Me Write to generate — scroll by means of. These recommendations, comparable to “Pitch for a product that allows people to create holograms of themselves” or “An introduction for someone I met at the conference,” offer you an concept as to how a immediate is worded. IDG
In each Docs and Gmail, Help Me Write gives concepts for prompts you possibly can ask it. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
Type in a immediate. For this information, we entered “A step-by-step plan for starting a small catering and events coordinator business as a side gig” in Google Docs to immediate a planning doc. And in Gmail we requested a enterprise letter with this immediate: “Follow-up to the client recipient asking how satisfied they are with our service, and invite the recipient to respond to me with more questions.” IDG
Type in your immediate for Help Me Write. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
After you sort in your immediate, click on Create. Help Me Write will course of your immediate, which can take a number of seconds; it will depend on how advanced the wording of your immediate request is. Then one other panel will open displaying the textual content it generated, which may be sentences or entire paragraphs. IDG
The generated outcomes seem in a brand new panel. You can refine the textual content earlier than inserting it. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
Below these outcomes are choices for beginning over or refining the generated textual content:Recreate: If you’re not glad with the textual content that Help Me Write generated, clicking this may instruct it to strive once more utilizing your prompts. Refine: Selecting this opens a small menu with additional choices:Formalize: Help Me Write rewrites the generated textual content with wording at a better tutorial studying stage. (Be warned: this may occasionally end in prose that’s stilted or excessively wordy.)Shorten: Help Me Write rewrites the generated textual content with fewer phrases.Elaborate: Help Me Write will generate further textual content to offer extra particulars based mostly in your prompts. Rephrase (in Docs): Help Me Write will paraphrase the textual content it generated. This motion is completely different from Recreate. When you click on Recreate, Help Me Write begins the textual content era course of over once more based mostly in your prompts, however when you choose Rephrase, Help Me Write will rewrite the textual content it already generated.I’m Feeling Lucky (in Gmail): This is like rolling the cube, the place Help Me Write will randomly rewrite your e mail draft in any variety of methods, comparable to making it longer or extra formal, and even organized as track lyrics. IDG
A consumer letter within the type of track lyrics is simply one of many random outcomes you would possibly get with the “I’m Feeling Lucky” choice.
When you’re proud of the textual content that Help Me Write generated for you, click on Insert so as to add it to your doc or e mail. After you insert the generated textual content, it turns into common doc textual content that you may edit as you see match.Use Help Me Write to rewrite textual contentYou can use Help Me Write to rewrite your doc or e mail, whether or not it was initially written by you or generated by Help Me Write.To use Help Me Write to rewrite in Docs, spotlight the textual content (phrases, sentences, or paragraphs) that you really want Help Me Write to remodel. Then click on the Help me write icon to the left of the highlighted textual content. IDG
In Docs, you possibly can have Help Me Write revise chosen textual content. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
A menu opens with the identical “Refine” rewriting choices we noticed earlier: Formalize, Shorten, Elaborate, Rephrase. There’s additionally a fifth choice on this menu: a “Custom” entry field the place you possibly can sort in a immediate comparable to “in an informal voice” or “use simpler wording.” IDG
Help Me Write elaborating on the chosen textual content in Docs. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
In Gmail, you should utilize Help Me Write to rewrite your total e mail draft — however not like in Docs, you can’t have it rewrite particular person phrases, sentences, or paragraphs. Click the Help me write icon on the toolbar, and on the menu that opens, you possibly can choose Formalize, Elaborate, Shorten, or I’m Feeling Lucky.Keep caveats in thoughts and finesse the resultsWhile Help Me Write may give you a head begin on your enterprise writing, the textual content it generates is much from excellent, so it’s essential to evaluate and edit its output. Here are some shortcomings to look out for within the outcomes that Help Me Write generates:Generic content material: Quite a lot of the passages that Help Me Write generates learn generically, offering solely very primary info. Even in the event you phrase your prompts very particularly, the outcomes should sound canned. IDG
Help Me Write usually delivers generic prose. (Click picture to enlarge it.)
Redundant content material: Help Me Write could generate textual content that mainly says the identical factor as textual content it generated earlier than. This can occur when you could have it generate a number of paragraphs after which instruct it to elaborate on a particular sentence or paragraph. The further textual content Help Me Write generates could learn equally to different passages that it’s already generated for you. It may select to current this redundant content material in an inventory format.Similar outcomes for various Google customers: Other folks utilizing the identical or equally worded prompts with Help Me Write might obtain comparable outcomes. This is more likely to occur in the event you immediate it to write down a few normal subject — so two Google customers who each immediate Help Me Write to generate textual content describing how one can create a marketing strategy, for instance, will most likely get outcomes that learn almost alike. The extra particular your request, the extra possible you’ll be to get distinctive outcomes.Factual errors: If you immediate Help Me Write to write down about topics which are based mostly on factual info (comparable to present enterprise analyses or tendencies) or of a technical nature, it’s best to scrutinize its outcomes, no matter how “correct” they might sound. You ought to conduct additional analysis, looking the net for dependable sources to substantiate what Help Me Write has generated.In addition to fact-checking, it’s best to carry out normal enhancing on all of the passages that Help Me Write generates. This course of contains studying by means of all the pieces, then including, rearranging, eradicating, and rewriting textual content as you are feeling is important. Practicing the craft of enhancing on Help Me Write’s output will assist you to form your doc or e mail right into a ultimate draft that’s informative and interesting for different folks to learn.A helpful collaboration toolAlthough you possibly can have Help Me Write generate paperwork or emails from scratch, it will possibly serve you higher in the event you method it as a writing assistant. For instance, you possibly can immediate Help Me Write to assemble a tough define for a enterprise proposal or advertising plan that you simply then flesh out with your individual writing.It will also be helpful for collaboration — as a brainstorming instrument, as an example. Try collaborating along with your co-workers on a shared doc, the place every particular person prompts Help Me Write to generate concepts for all to construct on.In truth, your interplay with Help Me Write is itself a type of collaboration. You immediate Help Me Write to generate textual content, its outcomes could in flip offer you concepts for how one can method a subject, and you retain working with the AI to refine these leads to your ultimate draft — thus, Help Me Write turns into your collaborator.AI writing is just the newest instrument within the always-evolving working relationship between folks and expertise. As lengthy as you perceive its guidelines and limitations, Help Me Write (and different AI-powered writing instruments) may be a useful aide to kickstarting your writing course of or refining what you’ve already written.
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