Gemini’s Personal Intelligence Feels Strikingly Similar
By many measures, Gemini is on a winning streak. It has surged ahead of competitors, showcasing impressive capabilities in generating realistic images and even securing a partnership with Apple. The recent announcement of its Personal Intelligence feature feels like a well-deserved victory lap. This feature allows Gemini to tap into past conversations and access your data from various Google services, such as Gmail, Calendar, Photos, and search history, without needing you to prompt it specifically. It’s completely opt-in, giving you control over which apps Gemini can access. Currently, it’s in beta and available only to users with AI Pro and Ultra subscriptions.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because Gemini previously offered integration with Workspace apps, but it required more effort from users. Previously, I had to explicitly ask it to check my email or calendar for information. Now, if it thinks a prompt warrants a look into your inbox for an email about concert tickets, it will do so automatically. This is a significant improvement. If you have to specify every single request and monitor the AI closely, it becomes no more useful than the basic timer-setting assistants we’ve been using for years.
Gemini also provides suggested prompts once you enable Personal Intelligence, like recommending books based on your interests. The suggestions I received were surprisingly accurate. One conversation starter led to an extensive discussion about strategies for managing my backyard, which I’m not fond of, especially with crows making a mess. Gemini suggested native plant options, added reminders to my calendar based on the plan we discussed, and created a shopping list in Keep for my next trip to the hardware store. Just a couple of months ago, Gemini often struggled with tasks like “Add this to my calendar,” so this is a notable advancement.
However, Gemini does stumble in other areas. I asked it to brainstorm new bike routes, including a stop at a coffee shop. While its high-level suggestions were decent, it faltered on the specifics. It provided a link to a route it claimed to have created in Google Maps, but the actual directions were different. I’m also skeptical about its suggestion to take unpaved trails through the woods, leading to a left turn across several lanes of traffic on a busy road, so I’ll likely stick to familiar routes.
That’s the crux of the issue. Gemini can analyze my interests and make reasonable guesses about what I might like, but it struggles with the finer details. I asked it to find neighborhoods I might not know well for an afternoon of photography and coffee. It correctly identified that I had previously lived in Ballard and excluded it from the recommendations. While the overall list was solid, the specific locations were often off.
For instance, it mistakenly identified a restaurant in South Park as being in Georgetown, claimed there was a Caffe Umbria in the Old Rainier Brewery building (which doesn’t exist), and enthusiastically recommended a T-shirt shop that is clearly closed according to its Google Maps listing. I had to fact-check and re-prompt enough that it started to feel like more effort than it was worth.
This might be Gemini’s biggest hurdle right now. A year ago, it required a lot of oversight to access personal information, and it frequently got things wrong. Now, it can handle personal data reliably, but inaccuracies in details are a significant drawback. A single visit to a vacant storefront can be enough to make you reconsider using Gemini. Additionally, there are privacy concerns; Gemini referenced my husband and child by name in one conversation. While it’s easy to find that information with access to my email and calendar, hearing their names out loud is another matter entirely.
Despite these concerns, I believe the addition of Personal Intelligence has broadened the ways I might use Gemini—though only slightly, as I wasn’t heavily relying on it before. I have a schedule for my yard work and a list for the local nursery, where I’ll consult an actual person to ensure I’m on the right track. Perhaps starting the planning process with Gemini will give me just enough confidence to dive in, even if I need to adjust my course later. It’s a handy tool to have, but I’ll definitely be cautious about the paths it suggests.
