Understanding Google Gemini: Your New AI Assistant

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Understanding Google Gemini: Your New AI Assistant
We are excited to announce that Google Gemini, a powerful generative AI tool, is now available to all University personnel, including all Extension personnel! This new resource will bring opportunities to enhance your work and streamline various tasks, all while being usable with University data.

What is Google Gemini?

Google Gemini is a generative artificial intelligence model developed by Google. Simply put, it's a chatbot that can understand and generate human-like text based on the prompts you provide. It's capable of a wide range of tasks, from drafting emails and summarizing complex documents to brainstorming ideas and even helping with creative writing. If you’re familiar with ChatGPT, it is very similar to that, except Google flavored and with enterprise data protection.

What it can do:

  • Generate Text: Create drafts of emails, reports, presentations, and other written communications. 
  • Summarize Information: Quickly condense long documents, research papers, or meeting notes. 
  • Brainstorm Ideas: Help you generate new concepts, solutions, or approaches for projects and challenges.
  • Answer Questions: Provide information and explanations on a vast array of topics.
  • Assist with Learning: Help you understand complex subjects by breaking them down or offering different perspectives.
Limitations to keep in mind: While powerful, Gemini is a tool, and like all tools, it has limitations. It may occasionally produce inaccurate or biased information, and it does not "understand" in the human sense. Always critically review any output from Gemini for accuracy, relevance, and appropriateness before use. It's a very competent assistant, but the final judgment and responsibility remain yours.

To gain access, fill out the opt-in form.

Ideas for using Gemini

Gemini can be a great addition to your daily toolkit, helping you work more efficiently and creatively! Here are some practical examples of how you can use Gemini in an Extension context:
  • Drafting Communications: Need to send an email about an upcoming event? Gemini can help you draft a clear and concise message that remembers to put in all the event info. "Edit this email for clarity and brevity" is my go-to!
  • Summarizing Research: Quickly get the main points from a lengthy research paper or a complex report to grasp key findings faster.
  • Brainstorming Ideas: Stuck on a problem or looking for new program ideas? Use Gemini to generate a diverse range of suggestions to kickstart your creative process.
  • Developing Educational Content: Get assistance in outlining workshop materials, creating quiz/poll questions, or generating examples for presentations.
  • Improving Writing: Ask Gemini to refine your phrasing, check for grammatical errors, or suggest alternative ways to express your thoughts. 
Tip: Enable Google Drive access in the Settings → Apps if you want to access your Google Docs, Sheets, etc. content in Gemini.

Resources are Available to Support Extension

Extension is committed to supporting you in understanding and effectively utilizing generative AI. We have a growing suite of resources designed to guide you, with more on the way:
Generative AI Principles for Extension (Intranet login required): Our foundational guidelines for ethical and responsible AI use.
Extension Generative AI Usage Guide (Intranet login required): A comprehensive guide offering practical advice and best practices for using generative AI tools.
Intro Training on Gemini (July 17, 2025, University System-wide): We highly encourage you to attend this introductory training to get started with Gemini.
Extension AI Ideas & Examples (Intranet login required): Explore practical use cases and learn how to craft effective prompts to get the best results from Gemini. We will be continually adding to this resource!
Additional AI Learning Resources for Extension (Intranet login required): Access materials to deepen your understanding of AI literacy and critical thinking.

Responsible Use is Key!

Adherence to both University and Extension principles for AI use is essential. Think of Gemini as a brilliant, incredibly fast student worker– it's full of ideas, but it still needs your expert guidance and a professional judgement before anything goes live. This means understanding and upholding Extension integrity, protecting sensitive data, and ensuring fairness and transparency in all applications of AI. 

Extension's AI Principles

We encourage you to familiarize yourself with Extension’s AI Principles (Intranet login required), which are designed to foster a responsible and innovative environment for AI use in Extension. The principles build off the University's guidelines while recognizing Extension's unique context. In a nutshell, the principles are: 
  • Protecting sensitive information
  • Maintaining credibility
  • Crediting AI
  • Individual choice and responsibility
  • Environmental responsibility
  • Continuous learning
We are excited about the possibilities Gemini brings to our work and look forward to seeing how it helps you go about your Extension work. Stay tuned for more updates and opportunities to learn and engage with generative AI!

Article by Amy Baker, Extension Learning Technologies, amy@umn.edu.

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