Google's Duet AI will attend meetings for you – if you pay $30 per month
The Google Duet AI price for Workspace will be $30 per month per user for larger enterprise businesses
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: written by a human
🤖 Google Duet AI will attend meeting on your behalf and take notes
💬 Late? It can catch up late joiners with “Summary So Far”
🏖️ Can’t make a meeting? It’ll pitch action items to your team
💰 Enterprise companies will pay $30 per month per user
🙋🏻♂️ This summary was written by a human
Take note – or don’t. Google Duet AI is the search engine giant’s AI technology that will take notes for you when you bow out of Google Meet video calls and simply want to receive a summary of what everyone else said (about work and probably about you).
Duet AI, launched today at Google’s Cloud Next conference, is also be able to capture action items and video snippets in real time of the people who decided to show up for the meeting while you’re double booked at the beach. 😏
Late joinerer? You’ll be able to get a summary of what has happened in a meeting so far with a feature called “Summary So Far.” It’s going to be awkward when that snapshot includes the small talk in the beginning about people’s personal lives. Maybe Google’s AI will be finely tuned over time to weed out those parts.
Can't make a meeting? Google Duet AI will have an “attend for me” that I suspect many people will abuse with overuse. It’ll pitch your message and ensure you get a recap of what everyone else says. This could be very interesting if you’re the only one in a meeting surrounded by automated messages.
Will your company pay $30 for Google Duet AI
Sounds cool, but that’s $30 per user per month for enterprise companies, according to CNBC, which notes that Google said this artificial intelligence tech doesn’t have final pricing for small organizations and individual users just yet.
This is the first time Google has revealed the price of Duet AI, but it was taking pre-orders for the AI service back in June. Now that Microsoft Copilot, a similar set of AI tools, has been announced, Google is publicly listing its price, at least for enterprise.
Google Duet AI’s other capabilities
Duet AI is integrated into Google Workspace, so it’ll also be able to draft Gmail you you want to send, summarize Gmail you don’t to read, rewrite Docs, organize Sheets and whip up Slides. Many of these were previously demoed at Google IO in May.
Many of these stated tasks eat up a lot of our time – especially daily meetings where much of what happens could have been summed up a single email. But, as The Verge points out, what if no one shows up (apparently, Duet AI will know) and how much will we trust a summary if AI routinely makes mistakes?
Then there are deeper questions I have about this tech. Eliminating time wasters is important, but AI also has the ability to substitute creativity through automation, too – often being trained by creators with no compensation or credit. Google Duet AI sounds like a great tool when no one wants to take notes, but that’s also an excuse to hire fewer people. AI automation is great – but a great concern for headcount.
The Shortcut will continue to report on the advancements and concerns surrounding AI in 2023 – with human journalists.