Summary
- Gemini Education offers AI-powered capabilities for educators and students, including chatbot assistance and access controls.
- Google expands Gemini to Workspace for Education customers, with options for basic and premium plans with different capabilities.
- Institutions can access additional services like OpenStax and DataCommons for AI-generated lesson plans and visualizations.
Google spent all of its I/O keynote address discussing advancements in the AI realm, barely sparing moments to discuss the new Pixel 8a and skipping over the new Android 15 Beta 2 entirely. However, several cool implementations for Gemini were unveiled at the event, including the chatbot’s ability to help with more than just paraphrasing your friend’s assignment. Gemini has a whole new set of utilities designed for educators and students at institutions using Workspace accounts.
5 new Gemini AI features that could change your life
Now all Google has to do is actually deliver
Gemini already unlocks a few cool capabilities on Android devices, such as asking Google Photos to summarize a memory for you or querying Search with video. Now, the company is expanding Gemini and all its generative AI smarts to Workspace for Education customers through a new add-on component called Gemini Education. The company offers two versions at different price points with slightly different capabilities — Gemini Education and Gemini Education Premium.
End to end involvement in education
The company’s latest offering starts with the fundamental inclusion of a chatbot running Gemini 1.0 Pro within the confines of enterprise-grade data protection for users aged 18 and older. The service is available in over 40 languages and available for free to Workspace for Education customers. The Workspace administrator will have complete control to restrict access to the chatbot and monitor user interactions with it. Google also promises it will never train AI models on the data shared with the chatbot, or share it with other institutions.
However, Google goes well beyond the Gemini Education add-on, so institutions can purchase licenses to services like OpenStax and DataCommons. Once available, these extensions will allow users to tap into Rice University’s OpenStax informative resources with a prompt like “OpenStax discuss the scientific significance of solar eclipses.” The response will also include citations and other peer-reviewed textbook content. Similarly, users can pull up digestible visualizations and infographics summarizing pages of data by tagging @Data-Commons.
For educators, AI can take the effort out of creating lesson plans, newsletters, job descriptions, and grant proposals for the school board. Other conventional features like email summarization get a boost with the AI pulling the key takeaways from a long email and outlining necessary action. In Sheets, teachers can create agendas for upcoming sessions or use Sheets to enliven presentations for the class with Help Me Visualize. IT can also brainstorm ideas for research work and tailor assignments to the interests of your class.
Two plans for maximum flexibility
Google’s basic Gemini Education plan gives all the people using the institution’s Workspace accounts access to the free generative AI chatbot and Gemini features in Workspace utilities like Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Gmail. Workspace administrators retain access controls, but there’s a big catch — a monthly usage limit.
Google is quite vague about pricing and what’s included, but mentions that the pricier Premium tier sweetens the deal with AI-powered notes and summarization capabilities in Google Meet alongside better data loss prevention and a bunch of other features that are still in the works.
