Google to Give Businesses AI Tools Whether or Not They Want It

Beware companies bearing gifts: They tend to want something. Google’s announcement on Wednesday that it would now include its artificial intelligence tools in its business products such as corporate Gmail, whether customers want the tools or not, was cast as a do-gooder move aiming to bring the power of AI to everyone. The reality is more likely that Google is desperate to get more businesses to use its Gemini-branded AI tools because not enough are buying them on an à la carte basis.

Hence, Google is resorting to giving those tools—which include AI enhancements for Gmail, Google Docs and Google Sheets—to everyone on its Workspace plans while simultaneously raising the price for those plans by $2 a month. That’s a much lower number than the $20 a month Google was charging for Gemini as an add-on feature. But Google will get those extra $2 from all its customers, presumably coming out ahead. It’s reminiscent of the cable TV business model, where every viewer paid for a package of channels, regardless of what they watched, ensuring that all the channels in the package did well.