Duet AI helped us write this blog post. Here’s how to use it for your business

SADA Says | Cloud Computing Blog

By Ryan Boudinot | Content Editor

We promise you that a human being wrote this sentence. And this sentence fragment. But for much of this blog post, we’re going to hand the reins over to Duet AI, Google’s new AI assistant that’s integrated into Google Workspace.

Before we go any further, understand that the reach of Duet AI goes well beyond Workspace, as was revealed recently at Google Cloud Next. SADA Associate CTO Simon Margolis, who spearheads many of our AI initiatives, explains that you can think of Duet AI as covering three areas: Google Workspace, Developers, and Cloud. In future posts, we’ll dive deeper into Duet AI for Developers and Cloud. For now, let’s focus on how to use Duet AI in Google Docs. 

How to use Duet AI: Initial prompts and output

Duet AI represents Google’s most significant integration of generative AI into its productivity and collaboration tools yet, and we were excited to take it for a spin. So what better place to start than with this blog? The post you’re reading started as they all do, on a blank Google Docs page. Ever since we enabled Duet AI, a new icon, featuring a pen, a little sparkle, and the words Help me write, appears at the top left corner of every blank page. Clicking this icon pulls up a window where you can enter a prompt. 

A screenshot showing how to use the Duet AI "help me write" feature.
When you install Duet AI in Google Docs, you’ll notice this icon at the top of the page. Here’s where to get started with your prompt.

The prompt

how to use the Duet AI prompt feature in Google Docs

To get this blog post started, we entered the following very basic prompt: 

A blog post introducing Google's Duet AI. This post describes all the features and benefits of this amazing new addition to Google Workspace. 

We submitted the prompt and got a clean, straightforward piece of copy in return. Feeling that it needed to be expanded, we selected the “Elaborate” option and re-generated the post. Then we performed another editorial pass, tightening up the copy by removing redundancies and making subtle tweaks to phrasing. 

It’s important to note that while Duet AI does a lot of heavy lifting by generating the initial copy, the onus remains on human editors to ensure that the end result is accurate and pleasing for humans to read. (Explore more tips on how to integrate generative AI into your copywriting practices.)

Here’s the output, initially generated by Duet AI, then edited by a certified homo sapien. 

The output

Introducing Duet AI for Workspace

Google is excited to announce Duet AI, a new AI-powered tool that helps you get more done in Google Workspace. Duet AI is currently in beta and is available to a limited number of users.

What is Duet AI?

Duet AI is a suite of AI-powered tools that help you with a variety of tasks in Google Workspace. These tools include:

- Duet Compose helps you write better emails, documents, and presentations by suggesting alternative wording, grammar corrections, and more.
- Duet Translate for translating text, documents, and websites into over 100 languages.
- Duet Summarize helps you quickly summarize long documents and articles.
- Duet Rewriter assists with rewriting text for clarity and conciseness.

Duet Proofreader catches errors in your writing, such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

How to use Duet AI

It’s simple. To use Duet AI, just open a new Google Docs document and click the “Help me write” icon. You can then start typing your promp

Benefits of Duet AI

Duet AI offers a number of benefits, including:

- Save time: Duet AI can help you save time by automating tasks, such as writing, translating, and summarizing.
- Improve accuracy: Duet AI can help you improve the accuracy of your work by catching errors and suggesting improvements.
- Increase productivity: Duet AI can help you increase your productivity by making it easier to get things done.

How to revise and refine Duet AI output

We now return you to your human narrator. As you can see from the output above, Duet did an admirable job laying out the basics of its features. Duet AI is good at providing the basic substance of a solid blog post. It’s a writing machine that writes like a machine, which puts the onus on human editors to finesse and tweak the language in subtle ways that convey your brand’s values.

Importantly, if you’re not satisfied with the initial output you get when you use Duet AI, you can always refine your prompt or throw it out altogether and start anew. Duet’s features include the ability to change the Tone, Summarize, Bulletize, Elaborate, Shorten, and Retry. Consider taking text from an email and pasting it into a prompt that converts it into bullet points. Or take a blog post that’s 1000 words long and ask to shorten it to half that length. We’ll go deeper into these functions in future posts dedicated to prompt engineering but suffice to say, you shouldn’t feel beholden to your initial output when you use Duet AI in Google Docs. 

Duet AI helps you generate rough drafts faster, which means you don’t have to sink as much time into that initial piece of copy. We’ve found that the art of prompt engineering involves a lot of give and take and trial and error. The sheer speed of the output gives you, the human editor, a lot more freedom to approach your copy from many different directions right at the outset. 

Duet AI Refine feature

How would you make use of a writing assistant that’s by your side, ready to craft error-free prose at a moment’s notice? Your human editor briefly considered coming up with a list of potential use cases, before handing the car keys to Duet AI. 

In this case, we’ll leave the initial output alone, then provide a revision so that you can compare them. You’ll see that our revision removes repetitive language, adds more variety, and weeds out bullet points that we decided were too vague. Duet AI is great at providing a foundation for a document, but you’ll need a higher degree of human involvement the more you’re writing about internal policies and processes, or referring to data that the large language model doesn’t have access to. 

The prompt

A bulleted list of 20 potential use cases for Duet AI. Be as specific as possible, referring to industries like healthcare, finance, retail, logistics, and IT. Go into depth about how a specific user in a specific role, for example a Marketing Manager, Creative Director, Head of Finance, or Human Resources Director, would use Duet as part of their day-to-day workflow.

The initial output

Marketing Manager
- Use Duet AI to generate marketing copy, such as blog posts, social media posts, and email campaigns.
- Use Duet AI to create marketing materials, such as infographics, videos, and presentations.
- Use Duet AI to track and analyze marketing performance.
- Use Duet AI to create personalized marketing campaigns for each customer.
- Use Duet AI to A/B test different marketing strategies to see what works best.

Creative Director
- Use Duet AI to generate creative ideas, such as new product concepts, marketing campaigns, and advertising copy.
- Use Duet AI to create visual assets, such as logos, websites, and marketing materials.
- Use Duet AI to collaborate with other creative professionals.
- Use Duet AI to create virtual reality experiences for marketing purposes.
- Use Duet AI to create augmented reality experiences for marketing purposes.

Head of Finance
- Use Duet AI to generate financial reports, such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements.
- Use Duet AI to analyze financial data and identify trends.
- Use Duet AI to make financial forecasts.
- Use Duet AI to automate financial tasks.
- Use Duet AI to identify potential fraud.

Human Resources Director
- Use Duet AI to recruit and hire employees.
- Use Duet AI to onboard and train employees.
- Use Duet AI to manage employee performance.
- Use Duet AI to create personalized learning materials for employees.
- Use Duet AI to provide feedback to employees.

Head of Finance
- Use Duet AI to generate financial reports, such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements.
- Use Duet AI to analyze financial data and identify trends.
- Use Duet AI to make financial forecasts.
- Use Duet AI to automate financial tasks.
- Use Duet AI to identify potential fraud.

Human Resources Director
- Use Duet AI to recruit and hire employees.
- Use Duet AI to onboard and train employees.
- Use Duet AI to manage employee performance.
- Use Duet AI to create personalized learning materials for employees.
- Use Duet AI to provide feedback to employees.

IT Manager
- Use Duet AI to manage IT infrastructure, such as servers, networks, and software.
- Use Duet AI to troubleshoot IT problems.
- Use Duet AI to automate IT tasks.
- Use Duet AI to create a secure IT environment.
- Use Duet AI to monitor IT systems for potential problems.

Retail Manager
- Use Duet AI to manage inventory.
- Use Duet AI to track customer orders.
- Use Duet AI to generate marketing campaigns.
- Use Duet AI to create personalized shopping experiences for customers.
- Use Duet AI to recommend products to customers.

Logistics Manager
- Use Duet AI to track shipments.
- Use Duet AI to optimize supply chains.
- Use Duet AI to manage warehouse operations.
- Use Duet AI to create a more efficient supply chain.
- Use Duet AI to reduce costs.

Healthcare Professional
- Use Duet AI to diagnose diseases.
- Use Duet AI to recommend treatments.
- Use Duet AI to generate patient education materials.
- Use Duet AI to create personalized treatment plans for patients.
- Use Duet AI to monitor patient progress.

Educator
- Use Duet AI to create personalized learning materials.
- Use Duet AI to grade student assignments.
- Use Duet AI to provide feedback to students.
- Use Duet AI to create virtual classrooms.
- Use Duet AI to provide tutoring to students.

Lawyer
- Use Duet AI to research legal precedents.
- Use Duet AI to draft legal documents.
- Use Duet AI to provide legal advice.
- Use Duet AI to create personalized legal documents for clients.
- Use Duet AI to negotiate on behalf of clients.

Engineer
- Use Duet AI to design products.
- Use Duet AI to develop software.
- Use Duet AI to test products and software.
- Use Duet AI to create virtual prototypes of products.
- Use Duet AI to automate engineering tasks.

The revision 

Marketing Manager
- Generate marketing copy, such as blog posts, social media posts, and email campaigns.
- Create marketing materials, such as infographics, videos, and presentations.
- Track and analyze marketing performance.
- Create custom marketing campaigns for each customer.
- A/B test different marketing strategies to see what works best.

Creative Director
- Generate creative ideas, such as new product concepts, marketing campaigns, and advertising copy.
- Create visual assets, such as logos, websites, and marketing materials.

Head of Finance
- Generate financial reports, such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements.
- Analyze financial data and identify trends.
- Make financial forecasts.
- Automate financial tasks.
- Identify potential fraud.

Human Resources Director
- Generate copy designed to recruit employees.
- Create onboarding and training materials for employees.
- Revise and streamline performance feedback to employees.

IT Manager
- Create documentation related to IT infrastructure, such as servers, networks, and software.

Retail Manager
- Generate marketing campaign materials related to sales and special offers.
- Create product recommendation messaging to customers.
- Healthcare Professional
- Generate patient education materials, including flyers, brochures, and web-based resources.
- Create personalized treatment plans for patients.

Educator
- Develop personalized materials based on students’ individual learning goals.
- Create tutoring resources to students.

Lawyer
- Create personalized legal documents for clients.

Integrating Duet AI for your business with expert guidance from SADA 

An image of two business professionals who could be using a tool like Duet AI on their laptop

In summary, Duet AI for Workspace shows incredible promise in reducing the busy work that consumes the lives of countless professionals, and offers immediate assistance when you need to crank through a lot of work quickly. You’ll get the most out of using Duet AI to augment functions of your work rather than replace them entirely. Just be sure to carefully vet the output! 

In the time we’ve had access to Duet AI at SADA, we’ve noticed it steadily improving and have started applying it to all sorts of tasks that had previously been time-consuming or routine. SADA’s AI experts stand ready to assist you with integrating this powerful new generative AI tool into your organization’s workflow. We’re rapidly expanding the scope of possible uses for generative AI and AI/ML data solutions, and would be happy to hear from you about your organization’s AI ambitions. 

When SADA’s domain experts engage with a business, we first seek to understand your organization’s unique goals, industry, and regulatory environment. It’s not a matter of simply plugging in a new application and walking away. It’s important to us that your organization gets the most value from the cloud in a way that makes the most sense and results in quantifiable business outcomes. Don’t hesitate to schedule a workshop with SADA experts who stand ready to help you make your vision for AI a reality. 

And be sure to see if SADA’s upcoming Generative AI and Google Workspace Roadshow is coming to your town. This 7-city tour is an opportunity for you to consult with leaders from Google and SADA’s Productivity & Collaboration team on all the next-generation AI innovations coming to Google Workspace. This unique and content-rich series of events will feature presentations and demos on: 

  • How to unlock your digital workplace
  • What’s possible with Google Workspace, Duet AI, and other generative AI innovations
  • Change management and regional customer user experiences
  • Enterprise collaboration
  • Identity and Access Management (IAM)
  • Cloud security
  • Teams and tasks management

Visit our Google Workspace Roadshow page for more information, and to find the event nearest you.

  • Ryan Boudinot, SADA

    Ryan Boudinot manages blogs, thought leadership, and other content at SADA. The author of five books, Ryan holds a MFA in creative writing from Bennington College.

LET'S TALK

Our expert teams of consultants, architects, and solutions engineers are ready to help with your bold ambitions, provide you with more information on our services, and answer your technical questions. Contact us today to get started.

Scroll to Top