Use Gemini in Drive to work with PDFs (Workspace Labs)

Gemini in Drive can help you work with all kinds of PDFs, whether they're:

Scanned PDFs: Pictures of paper documents turned into PDFs.
Native PDFs: PDFs created on a computer, not from a scan.
Text-heavy PDFs: Long PDFs with lots of writing.
Table-heavy PDFs: PDFs with complicated tables.

You can use Gemini in Drive to help you with these PDF files in several ways:

Summarize: Get a quick overview of long, complicated PDFs.
Ask questions: Find specific information or insights from the PDF.
Create new content: Use the PDF to make something new, like a study plan or an email draft.
Bring in more information: Combine the PDF with other files you have in Google Drive by typing @.

Feature availability

This feature is available as part of our early access testing program, Google Workspace Labs.
To turn off Google Workspace Labs features, exit the Workspace Labs program.
This feature is also available to users on work or school accounts through a Gemini for Google Workspace add-on, and to users on personal accounts through Google One AI Premium. Learn about Gemini features and plans.

Open Drive’s PDF viewer

When you double click a PDF in Drive, it opens Drive’s PDF viewer in a new tab which is a dedicated space to view and work with PDFs.

Tip: To make the Gemini panel twice as wide, at the top right corner, click Expand .

Get automatic summaries of PDFs

To open the side panel in Drive’s PDF viewer, you can click Ask Gemini at the top right of the navigation bar.

When you open Gemini in the PDF viewer, the side panel automatically summarizes the file for you. The summary gives a quick overview of the main points in the PDF.

Ask questions & get answers

You can ask Gemini questions about the PDF you're viewing.

In the side panel’s textbox, enter a question.
- You can also select a starter tile to use a template prompt.
Check the answer from the side panel.
To provide feedback on the answer, click thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Get the sources of Gemini's answers

To generate an answer, Gemini uses the most relevant sources. These sources may include the open PDF, other files in your Drive, information from the web, or a mix of these sources.

To help you understand where the information comes from and verify its accuracy, Gemini provides links to the sources of its answers.

Sources are expanded by default.
Clicking on a source chip will open that source file in a new tab.

Turn off Gemini in Drive

To turn off any of the features on Google Workspace Labs, you must exit Workspace Labs. If you exit, you’ll permanently lose access to all Workspace Labs features, and you won’t be able to rejoin Workspace Labs. Learn more about how to exit Workspace Labs.

Learn about Workspace Labs feature suggestions

Workspace Labs feature suggestions don’t represent Google’s views, and should not be attributed to Google.
Don’t rely on Workspace Labs features as medical, legal, financial, or other professional advice.
Workspace Labs features may suggest inaccurate or inappropriate information. Your feedback makes Workspace Labs more helpful and safe.
Don’t include personal, confidential, or sensitive information.
Google uses Workspace Labs data and metrics to provide, improve, and develop products, services, and machine learning technologies across Google. When you interact with Workspace Labs features, Google collects your Workspace Labs data, including your prompts and input, prompt and input refinements, generated output, generated output refinements, and feedback. Google also collects metrics on the usage of these features.
To help develop Workspace Labs features, human reviewers may read, annotate, and process your Workspace Labs interactions data.
Your conversations with Gemini in Drive are not saved to Gemini Apps Activity. When you delete your Gemini in Drive conversation history, it doesn't delete any information that is saved to your Gemini Apps Activity. Learn how to delete your Gemini Apps Activity.

How Workspace Labs data in Google Drive is collected

When you use the Gemini in Drive side panel, Google uses and stores the following data:

Prompts you enter or select
Generated text
Google Workspace content that you have access to that is referenced to generate content (both Google-selected input and user-provided input).
Your feedback on the Gemini in Drive side panel.

To understand how this data is used, review the Google Workspace Labs Privacy Notice and Terms for Personal Accounts.