How to Use Google Gemini

Google Gemini is a multimodal large language model you can use to process text, images, audio, code, and more. First introduced as a generative AI chatbot named Bard, Google’s Gemini model has become an ecosystem of purpose-built products offering AI agent assistance to users across a wide range of Google apps and services. As Google integrates Gemini into its apps and features, professionals in many industries are developing ways to employ this technology for productivity, efficiency, reduced costs, and enhanced outcomes.

Explore the key features and version of Google’s foundational AI model and how to use Google Gemini in industries like marketing, software development, and data analysis. 

What is Google Gemini?

Google Gemini is a large language model that uses a transformer architecture to understand a natural language prompt and predict the most likely output. One of Gemini’s key features is that it is multimodal, which means you can include different kinds of data in your input (such as providing a picture to the AI model and asking a question about it or presenting a portion of your code and asking Gemini for improvements). The model can also predict what kind of data you are looking for and show the output in the appropriate format (providing a picture or a paragraph, depending on your prompt).

Another important feature of Google Gemini is the integrations you can access between Gemini and other Google products. For example, you can use Gemini while you search the internet, inside your Docs, Sheets, and Slides files, within your Gmail account, and even on other apps like Pixel, Meet, and Notebook LM. You can also access the breadth of the internet in real-time, which means that Gemini has access to the most up-to-date information, from the latest news and headlines to current stock values. 

Types of Gemini models

Gemini is a foundational model, which means that Google researchers and scientists use it to develop purpose-built applications with specialized knowledge or ability. You can access different tools and apps built with Gemini and interact with varying sizes of the Gemini model, depending on your needs and what you’d like to accomplish.

Gemini began with 1.0 versions, which were further optimized into three sizes: Nano, Pro, and Ultra. The models can accomplish different tasks in different environments. The Nano, for example, is more efficient for on-device tasks or tasks that happen entirely on a device's hardware without accessing cloud services or another source of computational power.

The Ultra model was the most capable of handling complex tasks during the 1.0 release. Next came the 1.5 iterations optimized in Pro and Flash sizes. In December 2024, Google announced its latest release, Gemini 2.0, in an experimental Flash size. Current Gemini models include:

• Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Mode

• Gemini 2.0 Flash

• Gemini 1.5 Flash

• Gemini 1.5 Pro

• Gemini 1.0 Pro

• Gemini 1.0 Pro Vision

How to use Google Gemini

Despite the impressive results and numerous ways you can ask Google Gemini for help, it is still in the early stages of implementing this technology for all of the ways you could use it. As researchers at Google and DeepMind continue to advance Gemini’s underlying technology, new and improved use cases are emerging. Here are six ways you can use Gemini AI today:

• Boosting everyday productivity 

• Creating new software and development projects 

• Performing data analysis 

• Enhancing education 

• Improving customer service and sales 

• Marketing 

For everyday productivity

You can use Google Gemini to help you be more productive and make better decisions in various everyday tasks. For example, you can ask Gemini questions about any topic you want to learn more about, ask it to summarize text, describe ideas to you, and help improve your writing. You can use Gemini on your mobile phone to send a text message, connect to smart home systems, or identify the song playing over the radio. Moreover, you can use Gemini within your Google apps to increase productivity, like your Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, or Meet. 

For software development 

You can use Gemini to write code and develop software applications and other projects. For example, you can use Google Code Assist (a service within Gemini for Google Cloud) to help you directly in your integrated development environment with code completion, unit testing, debugging, and more. You can also choose Duet for Developers, also available on Google Cloud AI, which can write code while you talk to it in a natural language. You can also customize the model to your company’s needs. 

For data analysis

Google offers a data platform called BigQuery that you can integrate with Gemini to store, manage, and analyze up to 10 gibibytes (GiB) of data. You can use Gemini to speak in a natural language to an assistant who can help you search, prepare, and understand your data. Google also offers a data analysis and business intelligence (BI) platform called Looker, allowing you to visualize your data using interactive dashboards. Integrating this resource with Gemini, you can create reports and visualizations by requesting them in natural language. 

In the classroom

You can improve educational outcomes in your classroom by integrating Gemini into your Google Workspace. You may already use Google products to help you complete your work. With an integrated Google Gemini, you can use your assistant to aid you at every step, from brainstorming engaging lessons, writing and creating content, summarizing emails, creating slides and presentations, and improving meetings in Meet. You can even use Gemini to adjust content for a different audience. For example, you could ask Google to keep your assignments at a sixth-grade reading level. 

For customer service and sales

You can use Gemini in your Google Workspace to improve customer service in many ways, starting by automating responses to customer questions. Gemini can offer basic information to answer most user questions using generative AI. You can also use Gemini to transcribe meetings and summarize your touchpoints with customers or to build customer profiles using information from multiple sources. 

For marketing 

Similarly, you could use Gemini in Google Workspace to create and execute marketing campaigns. Gemini can generate a project tracker and analyze a lot of information to help you craft your message and plan your campaign. You can use Gemini to create the first draft of blog posts, social media messages, and ad copy, as well as create images and pictures to accompany your text. 

Is Google Gemini free?

Like many Google products, you can access a free consumer tier and start using Google Gemini today. You can access Gemini within Google Workspace through Google Cloud to access specialized services or business-grade resources. You can also integrate a Gemini API into your development projects. These options come at a cost distributed over tiers representing how or how much you will use the service.

Google Workspace: Google Workspace is similar to Google Drive but with the addition of business services, such as a dedicated business email, pooled storage, security features, and large meeting capacity. You can access Google Workspace through four tiers [1]: 

• Business Starter: $7 per user per month

• Business Standard: $14 per user per month

• Business Plus: $22 per user per month

• Enterprise: Contact Google's sales department for pricing

Gemini add-ons: Google Workplace has access to the Gemini App, but you’ll need a Gemini add-on to use Gemini directly in your Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more. This choice comes in two tiers [2]:

• Gemini Business: $20 per user per month

• Gemini Enterprise: $30 per user per month

You can also access Gemini through Google Cloud AI, Vertex AI, and Google AI for Developers. These programs offer pay-as-you-go models, so you can customize your price according to your organization's needs. 

Learning more about AI tools with Coursera

Google Gemini is a powerful foundation model that can be leveraged across various platforms, including Google Workspace, Google Cloud AI, and Google AI for Developers. You can learn more about how to work with large language models on Coursera. For example, you can enroll in IBM’s AI Developer Professional Certificate, where you’ll build job-ready skills in AI technologies, generative AI models, and programming and learn to build AI-powered chatbots and apps in just 6 months.