Google tailors AI-powered search for enterprise

Google has announced a new digital assistant targeted at enterprise users that can search through information in Google Apps like Gmail, Drive, and Calendar, and provide help to users throughout the day.

Google Springboard helps users find the right information at the right moment.

Springboard was announced in a Google for Work blog post written by Prabhakar Raghavan, VP of engineering, Google Apps. The company says Springboard will also “assist you throughout your workday by proactively providing useful and actionable information and recommendations”.

Google’s efforts to bolster the functionality of Apps for Work appears to be paying dividends as the firm has seen new customers move from rival enterprise apps to its own offerings. If you’re interested in getting an early look at Springboard you can sign up here.

Several observers have noted that Springboard and Sites offer capabilities similar to those provided by Microsoft’s SharePoint, a cloud-based service that lets enterprises store and organize information and share it across multiple devices. The new tool has become extremely important as Google offers more, sometimes complex, services and users have to go through a large library of files and documents.

Google also revealed an overhauled version of the Sites tool used to create websites and pages for a company’s intranet or internal knowledge site. Hence, Google needs to gear up fast and target more enterprise customers to expand and take a lead in the market.

The introduction of Springboard is representative of Google’s push into more advanced AI tools, and from its description sounds like it will be a welcomed addition to the Google Apps product lineup. Admins on companies’ Google Apps for Work may apply through the Springboard’s Early Adopter program to get quick access to the service. This feature functions a lot like Google Now, the company’s intelligent personal assistant feature. Templates with themes and layouts that automatically scale to fit different screen sizes are also available with the newly revamped Sites, Raghavan said.