On Wednesday, Google (GOOG, GOOGL) announced a new tier of its AI-capable enterprise productivity suite Gemini for Workspace. This move is aimed at rivaling Microsoft (MSFT) as the two continue to compete for customers in the generative AI era.
The new offering, called Gemini Business, is an add-on for Google’s Workspace suite of products, which includes Gmail, Docs, Meet, Sheets, and Slides. Priced at $20 per user per month, Gemini for Business is $10 cheaper than Google’s existing Gemini Enterprise and Microsoft’s Copilot for Microsoft 365.
Gemini for Business provides Gemini capabilities to the Workspaces suite, offering email drafting assistance, data analysis, document creation, and more. It also includes access to a standalone version of Google’s Gemini via a custom landing page powered by Google’s Gemini Ultra large language model.
Gemini for Enterprise offers the same features as Gemini for Business, as well as the ability to translate captions in Google Meet in more than 100 language pairs and, in the future, take meeting notes for users. Both services do not have a minimum user requirement, allowing small and medium businesses and enterprises to sign up. Google states that no user conversations with Gemini for Business or Gemini for Enterprise will be used for advertising, reviewed by humans, or used to train its algorithms.
In addition to Gemini for Business, Google announced the rollout of its Google One AI Premium plan, which adds Gemini to the company’s consumer productivity suite and provides access to Google’s Gemini Advanced, running on the Ultra 1.0 AI model. The company also plans to bring Gemini for Workspace to education users in the future.
Gemini for Business and Gemini for Enterprise directly compete with Microsoft’s Copilot for Microsoft 365, which offers similar generative AI features through its own productivity suite. Other companies are also adding generative AI capabilities to their business products, as the technology continues to gain traction.
Tech firms are expected to demonstrate that the investments they’ve made in AI technologies are beginning to pay off. Microsoft has shown that AI services contributed 6 percentage points of growth to Azure revenue in its latest quarter, up from 3 percentage points in the prior period. Revenue for the company’s Intelligent Cloud business, including Azure, reached $25.8 billion.
Both Google parent Alphabet and Microsoft have seen significant increases in their stock prices due to the AI trend. Alphabet shares have risen 50% over the last 12 months, while Microsoft shares have jumped 53%.