What is Workspace Intelligence, and how is it different from the Gemini app?

Workspace Intelligence is the underlying system, rolled out fully on April 22, 2026, that gives Gemini permission-respecting awareness of a user's Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and Chat data inside Business, Enterprise, and Education editions of Workspace. The standalone Gemini app is a separate consumer or Pro and Ultra chat product; Workspace Intelligence is what makes Gemini feel native inside Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Chat instead of a bolt-on chatbot.

Does Gemini in Gmail read other people's email to answer my questions?

No. Retrieval respects existing permissions, so Gemini in Gmail only surfaces content the requesting user could already open themselves, it cannot pull from a colleague's private inbox or a file they do not have access to.

Can Gemini in Docs actually cite the sources it pulls from the web?

The web-grounded portion of a Help me create draft is assembled from Google's internal web index the same way an AI Mode or Search answer is, though how much inline citation is shown to the user varies by feature and is still evolving as Google expands the rollout. Treat any web-sourced claim in a Gemini draft the way you would treat an AI Overview: a useful starting point worth verifying before it goes into a client-facing document.

Is Personal Intelligence in AI Mode the same thing as Workspace Intelligence?

No, they are separate systems built for different accounts. Personal Intelligence, launched January 22, 2026, is an opt-in consumer feature for individual Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers that connects personal Gmail and Photos to AI Mode. Workspace Intelligence is the admin-controlled business version grounded in company Workspace data, not personal accounts.

Do I still need FAQ and HowTo schema now that the rich results are gone?

Yes, it is still worth keeping. Google removed the visual rich-result display for HowTo markup in 2023 and for FAQ markup on May 7, 2026, but both remain valid schema.org types, and clean structured markup still helps AI systems, including Gemini, parse your content into clear, citable question-and-answer or step-by-step units.

What is the single highest-leverage move for a B2B brand trying to be surfaced inside Gemini's Workspace answers?

Get your brand described in one clear, consistent sentence everywhere it might land in someone's inbox or feed: cold outreach, newsletters, Reddit threads, LinkedIn posts, and review sites. Gmail grounding depends on what already reached the inbox, and Docs and Chat grounding pull from the same community and earned sources that dominate AI citations generally.

Does Microsoft 365 Copilot work the same way?

Directionally yes, Copilot is building a similar permission-aware retrieval layer across Outlook, Word, and Teams, but it draws on Bing's index and Microsoft's own knowledge graph rather than Google's, so the entity and content signals that matter can differ in the details even though the underlying strategy, being structured, cited, and consistently described, carries over.

How do I know if my brand is actually showing up in these answers?

You need to test it directly and repeatedly, since neither Google Search Console nor GA4 reports on what Gemini says inside a private Doc or Gmail thread. Running the same set of category and comparison prompts on a recurring schedule across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity, and logging how your brand is described, is the only reliable way to catch drift before it shows up in a lost deal.

How to Optimize for Gemini in Google Workspace, Gmail, and Docs