Google's office-software suite now has over 9 million paying organizations, the company told Insider.
Workspace, formerly known as G Suite, had grown to 3 billion users as of October 2021. Under Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, the organization has made a major push to win over large organizations, including Korean Air, Wayfair, Airbus, and the US Army. Now it's rolling out artificial-intelligence features across the Workspace suite. Google announced Tuesday that it would begin testing those features in Gmail and Google Docs.
Workspace users will be able to generate documents or compose emails by entering basic prompts, such as asking Google Docs to create "a job post for a sales rep." Other planned generative-AI features include generating backgrounds in Google Meet and conjuring images, audio, and video in Google Slides.
Workspace's biggest competitor is Microsoft Office, whose Office 365 product had 345 million paid commercial seats as of last year and has a stronghold among large enterprise customers. Employees at Workspace told Insider that it was often difficult to sell Workspace to companies that were already Microsoft shops.
Workspace's latest push into generative AI, as well as its cloud-first products, could give it an edge. Microsoft, which invested in the ChatGPT maker OpenAI, plans to incorporate the widely popular chatbot into its Office products, The Information first reported.
Workspace is part of Google Cloud. The unit surpassed $7 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2022, but it's still unprofitable. It has decreased its losses to $480 million, down from $890 million last year. Workspace's subscription model could be an opportunity for the unit to close its margins.
