I didn\u2019t know where to start, so I took a page from my colleague Antonio\u2019s book<\/a>: I decided to use Spark to tackle tasks like what Google demonstrated onstage at I\/O. Would it work as well in my home office as it did on the big stage?<\/p>\n Google\u2019s Josh Woodward demoing Spark. Photo by Allison Johnson \/ The Verge<\/p>\n At I\/O, Google VP Josh Woodward showed off a few different examples. The first was asking Spark to draft an email to a team at Google, compile everything about the Gemini Live launches and \u201cwins from last week,\u201d and use a special AI skill to make the email sound like him. Google asking Google to do things for Google should be the easiest lift in the world, so I tried to push it further.<\/p>\n I asked Gemini to draft an email to my wife that compiles our total monthly average grocery spending in 2026. I figured this test would tell me a few things: Could Spark figure out who my wife was (without me giving Spark her name), could it determine where our budget spreadsheet is in Drive (which does not have \u201cbudget\u201d in the file name), and could it actually draft an email in Gmail?<\/p>\n When I got the result from Spark shortly after, I really said: \u201cWow, that\u2019s actually nuts.\u201d Spark found my wife\u2019s email address, pulled the right information from our 2026 budget spreadsheet, grabbed the monthly grocery totals including the incomplete data from May (which still wasn\u2019t over when I ran the test), averaged the totals, and put it all in a draft email in my Gmail. The text of the email addressed my wife by her first name, even though her email address does not contain her first name. It even included a sign-off that we use just for each other.<\/p>\n In his next example, Woodward asked for some help planning a block party. I\u2019m not planning a block party, but I asked Spark for help using the same questions he asked. It didn\u2019t go well. It created a table of friends and family as a \u201chighly realistic reference for who is bringing what,\u201d drafted an email in my Gmail mentioning a shared sign-up sheet that doesn\u2019t exist, and created an ugly deck with slides detailing information about city permits.<\/p>\n To push Spark, I asked it to create that missing sign-up sheet and add a link to the email that was already drafted. While Spark took a few minutes to figure it out, that task did work; it created a spreadsheet and went back to the draft email text and dropped in the link.<\/p>\n Woodward\u2019s last demo was arguably the most impressive. He talked at Spark to ask it to do a bunch of things: make his meetings with CEO Sundar Pichai hot pink on his calendar, write a note to a new neighbor to invite him to his block party, and create a document to help with to-dos for his kids for the end of the school year. For my own version, I asked it to make a calendar event each month ahead of my wife\u2019s birthday and make it hot pink, draft an email to my family about sending them the first episode of the latest season of Taskmaster, and create a document with the top things my wife and I need to know about getting our toddler ready for preschool.<\/p>\n I started this request at 3:35PM PT on Friday. During I\/O, Woodward made a bit of a show about putting his phone down and promising to check the results later in the keynote, which he did. But after addressing one hiccup \u2014 Spark wanted to access my contacts, which I declined \u2014 my task was done about four minutes later.<\/p>\n Once again, I was a little floored by the results, though they were imperfect:<\/p>\n My Google calendar now has events from 9\u201310AM on the correct day of each month leading up to my wife\u2019s birthday. The reminders are in what Google calls \u201cflamingo,\u201d which isn\u2019t exactly \u201chot pink,\u201d but close enough.Spark grabbed the emails of my immediate family and put them in a draft email. (Strangely, it didn\u2019t include my wife\u2019s.) The text of the email got the name of the first episode of the latest season of Taskmaster correct, but linked to a trailer instead of the actual episode. The email also included the term \u201cloool,\u201d which is something I write in casual written conversation.Spark made a Google Doc in my Drive with a preschool preparation checklist. However, it\u2019s only available to me; I asked Spark if it could give access to my wife, but it said it isn\u2019t currently able to do that.<\/p>\n Spark could be a powerful tool. But there are a few caveats I should mention. Like all AI tools, you still have to check its output to make sure it\u2019s accurate, which could have higher stakes when it\u2019s pulling from personal information to prepare things you share with people you know. Although Google pitches Spark as something that can operate on its own, I found myself constantly watching it or checking the notifications it sent to my phone. What good is an assistant if you have to micromanage their every move instead of trusting them? And why should something I feel so unsure about drain power from a resource-hungry data center for relatively inconsequential tasks?<\/p>\n Currently, Spark is only available to subscribers of Google\u2019s AI Ultra plan, which starts at $99.99 per month, and only to users in the US and only in English. Google gave me free access to test Spark, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s good enough to be the sole reason to spring for those expensive plans. Especially when I could do all of the tasks I asked Spark to do on my own \u2014 they would just take more time.<\/p>\n Spark also works best if you\u2019re already deep in the Google ecosystem and have Personal Intelligence on. I\u2019ve had a Google account for around two decades, so Spark has a lot of data it can use to inform its answers. But while Google promises that<\/a> Gemini \u201cdoesn\u2019t train directly\u201d on your Gmail inbox with Personal Intelligence turned on, you\u2019ll still have to put your faith in Google that it will be a good steward of your data<\/a>. For now, I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s worth the cost or the risk.<\/p>\n Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Jay PetersClose Jay Peters<\/p>\n Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All by Jay Peters<\/a><\/p>\n AIClose<\/p>\n AI<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All AI<\/a><\/p>\n GoogleClose<\/p>\n Google<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Google<\/a><\/p>\n Google I\/O 2026Close<\/p>\n Google I\/O 2026<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Google I\/O 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Hands-onClose<\/p>\n Hands-on<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Hands-on<\/a><\/p>\n ReportClose<\/p>\n Report<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Report<\/a><\/p>\n ReviewsClose<\/p>\n Reviews<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n![\"Google\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/lcimg-f4e04b1d-fa8e-4d4c-86f7-ac5a5c4fd0ad.jpeg\"\/)
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