Google this week released a set of new features
that merge more of the company's core strengths and other legacy
products with the Google for Work portfolio. Including the six new
features announced this week (only three of which are detailed here),
the company says it made more than 100 improvements to Google Docs,
Sheets, Slides and Forms since the beginning of the year.
Google Docs gets voice-to-text
Voice input in Google Docs is the most important of the new
features released for enterprise users, according to Forrester analyst
David Johnson. The new speech-to-text capability supports more than 40
languages and must be activated via Google Chrome's Tools menu. The
feature is available only in Chrome browsers and there’s no word from
Google on when other browsers might be supported.
"For the millions of people who cannot type fast … being able to
speak instead of type is valuable, when it's reliable," Johnson says.
"Google's voice-to-text engine is excellent because it's continuously
learning and improving, so applying it to document creation is a win."'Research' provides simpler search tools
A new tool in Google Docs, called Research, ranks second
among the new capabilities, according to Johnson. You can now perform
Google searches without leaving Docs, and quickly find quotes, facts or
images to embed or cite in documents. (Unfortunately, the tool is only
available for Android and desktop users at this point.)
"Google Scholar [the company's database of scholarly
literature and research] is superb, and making it easier to insert
references to published research in addition to websites and images with
Research is a differentiator," says Johnson.
Vanessa Thompson, research director of enterprise social
networks and collaborative technologies, IDC, agrees. "Cognitive
capabilities like automated assist and expert search eliminate redundant
tasks so users can focus on exceptions or making decisions."
'See new changes' turns documents into conversations
Google also released a new option in Docs, called "see new
changes," that shows all changes that were made to a document with
multiple collaborators. The tool takes a more traditional, "Microsoft
Word-like" approach to track changes, and edits appear directly in the
text along with identify information on the users who made them.
The feature shows edits and other changes within documents,
and it changes the overall process and flow of document collaboration in
Docs. The older, "suggested edits" feature positions edits as
suggestions that live along the right-side column of documents, similar
to comments."
"Over time I would expect the 'see new changes' feature to
become 'see relevant and important' changes as updates become more
targeted," Thompson says.
Ryan Tabone, Google's director of product management, says
the new feature turns documents into conversations. "Like any
conversation, when you're speaking with others it's important to
understand what was said and by whom." See new changes helps users do
just that, he says.
"One of the most important advantages of a cloud-based
productivity platform is the ability to continually improve the product
with new capabilities," Johnson says. These three new features,
particularly voice typing and the research tool, all provide meaningful
value for enterprises, he says.
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