Google wants an AI agent to take a seat at the office. At its Gemini at Work event on Thursday, Google Cloud announced what it calls a single, universal agent for work, The Verge reported. Workers give it a goal, and it plans and carries out the steps.

The agent works inside Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Chat and Calendar. It also reaches outside Google, into Microsoft 365, Slack, Salesforce, ServiceNow and Jira, Tech Wire Asia reported. Because it runs in the cloud, it keeps working after a person closes the laptop, and a single job can stretch over hours or days, Decrypt reported.

One example Google gave: a manager emails asking for a project update as a slide deck. Gmail flags it as a task the agent can take, and one click hands it off, 9to5Google reported.

The most unusual piece is what Google calls coworker agents. A manager describes a role, such as events coordinator, and Gemini creates an agent with its own email address, calendar, Drive storage and listing in the company directory. Workers can assign it tasks by tagging it in a document.

The agent does not only use Google's own AI. It picks between Google's Gemini models and Anthropic's Claude models based on the job and the cost, 9to5Google reported, with other models planned.

Google pitched safety controls aimed at company tech teams. Each agent gets its own verified identity, and its actions land in an audit log under the agent's name, not a person's. Agents run in a walled-off space, and companies can set spending caps that pause the agent when a project hits its limit.

This is a business product, not a feature for personal Gmail users. Google launched a separate consumer agent, Gemini Spark, in May, The Verge noted.

What we know: The Gemini agent is in private preview for business customers.
What we don't: What it will cost and how well it handles long jobs on its own.