Google's Gemini agent takes on office work across 100+ tools, Claude models and its own email inbox included

What happened

On 8 October, at Google Cloud’s annual business event Gemini at Work 2026, Google Cloud chief executive Thomas Kurian announced the Gemini agent, which he called “a single, universal agent for work”.

The difference from a chatbot, in Kurian’s words: “You give it objectives, not instructions. You delegate an outcome and come back to finished work.” It answers questions, handles knowledge work, creates images and media, and writes and runs code, all from one prompt box, and developers can reach it through a single API.

Gemini monthly active users

1bn+

Fortune 100 companies using Gemini Enterprise

nearly 90%

Google Cloud customers that each processed 1tn+ tokens last year

nearly 500

Supported integrations

100+

Sources: Google Cloud blog (8 Oct 2026) and Gemini for business product page; the user figure was given by Google chief executive Sundar Pichai at the event, as reported by TechCrunch.

What businesses actually get

1. Work done inside Gmail and Docs. It sits inside Gmail, Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Chat and Calendar. Google’s example: ask it to “set up a meeting with the usual team of regional event leads next week” without naming anyone, and it works out who they are from your chat space and the last event’s thread, checks calendars and starts an email thread to find a time, including with outside participants. Or ask it to research market trends, build a financial model in Sheets and turn both into a deck, without re-explaining the project at each step.

1. 1A request arrivesYour manager emails asking for the latest project update as a slide deck.
2. 2Spotted as delegableWorkspace recognises it as a task Gemini can take and offers a one-click hand-off.
3. 3Done in the backgroundGemini gathers material and builds the deck in the cloud; it keeps going if you close your laptop.
4. 4Back for reviewThe result lands in your Workspace for you to check before sending.

Source: Google Cloud blog's description of the Workspace features

2. An “AI colleague” with its own inbox. A team describes a role, such as events coordinator, and Gemini creates a “coworker agent”. It gets its own Workspace account: an email address (at @agents.yourcompany.com), calendar, Drive and an entry in the company directory. Colleagues add it to a chat, @mention it or tag it in a document comment; its edits appear under its own name in version history, and it can see only what people share with it.

3. Connections to existing systems. Google lists Confluence, Microsoft Office, Teams, Slack, Git, Jira, Salesforce, ServiceNow, databases such as BigQuery, Databricks, Postgres and Snowflake, and files on your own computer. The product page claims more than 100 integrations, and it can connect to any MCP server (a common standard for letting AI use outside tools). Companies can publish their own tools and workflows, which Google calls “skills”, to an internal registry for everyone to use.

4. Data analysis and industry versions. Business users can ask in plain language for an operational report; Gemini writes and saves the BigQuery query, and later re-runs cost no tokens. Versions for financial services and legal are in preview: the finance version draws on FactSet, LSEG, S&P Global and SEC filings and comes with more than 50 built-in skills; the legal version inherits permissions and ethical walls from document systems such as NetDocuments and iManage. Government, healthcare and retail versions are “coming soon”.

5. A choice of models, and a spending cap. The agent and the model are separate: routine jobs can run on the cheaper Gemini Flash, harder ones on the flagship Gemini 4 Argon, or on Anthropic’s Claude. Administrators can set a hard spending limit per project in the Google Cloud billing console; when it is reached the agent pauses, and costs can be charged back to departments. Each agent has its own identity, every action is logged against it, and all traffic passes through an “Agent Gateway” that enforces company rules such as “agents may not open documents classified Need to Know”.

How big: numbers from customers

Google’s announcement lists results from business customers. They come from the existing Gemini Enterprise product, not independent tests of the new agent:

• Bradesco, a Brazilian bank: financial document review cut from 1 hour to 5 minutes.
• Commerzbank: manual document quality checks cut from 20 hours to 1.
• BNP Paribas: Gemini Enterprise built into an internal assistant available to more than 65,000 employees.
• The US Defense Department’s Chief Digital and AI Office: rolled out to 3 million service members and civilian staff, who have built more than 100,000 custom agents.

How it compares

Over the past few months each of the big AI companies has launched a “give it a goal, it finishes the job” work agent. The table lists only what official pages or reliable reporting confirm:

Product	Status and who can use it	Price	Models	Main connections and features
Gemini agent (Google)	Announced 8 Oct 2026, private preview; to open to some Workspace Business and Enterprise plans	Not announced	Gemini, with Claude as an option	Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Jira, Salesforce, BigQuery and 100+ more, any MCP server; agents get their own email; per-project spending caps
ChatGPT Work (OpenAI)	Launched July 2026, all ChatGPT plans including Free	Included in plans; complex tasks use more of the allowance	GPT-5.6 at launch	Slack, Teams, Google Drive, SharePoint, email, calendars, CRMs; scheduled tasks, shareable web pages, computer use on desktop
Claude Cowork (Anthropic)	Available on paid Claude plans	Included in Pro ($20/month), Max ($100 / $200) and other plans	Claude	Folders you choose, connectors and plugins; works on local files, built-in browser, scheduled runs
Microsoft 365 Copilot	Available to Microsoft 365 business users with a Copilot licence	Copilot Business add-on $21 per user per month billed annually ($18 on offer); Copilot Cowork metered separately	Lists OpenAI’s GPT-5 models, with model choice	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, connectors for outside data; built-in Researcher and Analyst agents

Sources: Google Cloud blog and 9to5Google; ChatGPT Work as reported by The Next Web on 10 July 2026; Claude Cowork product page; Microsoft Copilot pricing page. All checked 9 October 2026.

Google’s distinctive bets are, first, working across both Google’s and Microsoft’s office software and letting customers pick a rival’s (Anthropic’s) models; and second, managing agents like employees, with their own accounts, permissions and audit trails. The other three can already be used; Google’s is still in preview.

Things to keep in mind

• You cannot buy it yet, and the price is unknown. According to 9to5Google, it is in private preview with select customers and will be widely available “soon” to Workspace customers on select Business and Enterprise plans, with no date. Neither Google post gives a price or says whether it is included in existing subscriptions.
• Google’s own pages disagree. The blog says Claude models are available today; the product page FAQ says “Google Gemini models today, with additional models coming soon”, and notes that background multi-step tasks, mobile and desktop apps and third-party model choice are still in early access.
• The results are not independently verified. The customer figures come from Google’s announcement, and most relate to the existing Gemini Enterprise product rather than the new agent.
• Not for personal accounts yet. TechCrunch reports that Google is starting with businesses and will bring the agent to consumers later.

What it means for you

• If your employer uses Google Workspace: the features have to be switched on by your company’s administrators; you cannot turn them on yourself. Watch for whether your company joins the preview or changes plan.
• If you run IT for a business: Google offers a 30-day free trial of Gemini Enterprise Plus, which lets you evaluate the existing Gemini business features; access to the new agent’s preview goes through Google Cloud sales.
• If you use the personal Gemini app: this launch does not reach you yet. The similar “hand it the job” tools already available to individuals are ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork.