IT Manager’s Guide to Gemini: A Step-by-Step Deployment Plan: Part I

In most cases, deploying Gemini for Google Workspace is straightforward.  Just choose a plan and sign up. The functionality is fully integrated alongside the productivity apps your team already uses every day.

But how can you make your Gemini rollout most effective? How can you help everyone feel comfortable with the tool and maximize their utility? Read on for Wursta’s 20 steps for IT Managers to effectively roll out Gemini for Google Workspace. 

We’ve divided our rollout recommendations into two phases:  

1. Preparing for and launching Gemini in your organization
2. Recommendations on how to use Gemini effectively every day. ← Coming next week!

Phase I: Tips to preparing to launch Gemini for Google Workspace

1. Determine Which Users Could Benefit

Prior to deployment, audit your organization to see what users could benefit most from Gemini for Google Workspace. Determine which users might benefit from an AI productivity tool to increase their creative output. Additionally, consider who could use help with remote meetings when talking to stakeholders in other locales where live translated captions might be useful.

2. Select a Licensing SKU & Estimate Costs

First, you must determine what licensing SKU makes the most sense for your organization. Google offers various options for generative AI functionality within Google Workspace. There are add-ons you can choose from, including AI security, AI Meetings & Messaging, Gemini Business, and Gemini Enterprise. 

Gemini Business can help your users enhance productivity, boost creativity, and save time. Every user is subject to a monthly usage limit, which is sufficient for typical generative AI needs. Both Gemini Business and Gemini Enterprise have access to Ultra 1.0, which is Google’s most capable AI model.

Determine which SKU works for your team and calculate your total costs, which you’ll need for step 8.

3. Data Privacy and Governance: No Need to Jump Hurdles

With the Enterprise version of Gemini for Google Workspace, IT admins get the capability to proactively scan what sensitive information already exists in your organization. Your Gemini for Google Workspace data receives the same data protection and security standards as any other Google Workspace service. Within your own Google Workspace domain, the existing Google Workspace protections that you’ve already deployed in your organization will automatically apply as you roll out Gemini.

There aren’t many technical hurdles that you have to meet to deploy Gemini for Google Workspace as long as you already have security standards in place to protect your other Google Workspace services, for example, having the correct access and permissions, such as:

• Data-protection rules for sensitive data
• Device policies
• Context-aware access policies to ensure that the right users have access to the right information at the right time

If you already have these Google Workspace security settings in place, they’ll automatically apply to Gemini. 

Google never uses customer data to train their AI models. Your data is your data. There are trusted tester programs where organizations opt-in to permit Google to use their data for training AI models. However, organizations must take action and choose to opt into such programs. You won’t end up consenting to participate as part of accepting lengthy terms and conditions of a EULA for a different service. Additionally, Gemini does not allow prompts or session content to leak between users. Your users will not have access to any information that they don’t currently have access to.

4. Set Up an Optimal Organizational Hierarchy (or Confirm Existence)

If you already have a Google Workspace domain, then most likely, you already have a sufficient organizational hierarchy set up. This means you also have an optimized access and permissions policy within your organization so that when you deploy Gemini for Google Workspace, your users will have access to the right information at the right time.

5. Assign Licenses

Google Workspace administrators can go to admin.google.com, and on the left-hand panel under “Directory,” select “Users.” Be sure to assign a license for yourself. You don’t have to manually assign licenses to individual users. Instead, you can:

• Assign licenses to all users within a CSV file to deploy at a mass level
• Use available API capabilities for a more automatic approach
• Assign licenses to all users within an organizational unit

6. Crowdsource Uses, Sharing the Wealth

Socialize success by recruiting power users to be Google Champions in your organization. Give them profile badges and provide opportunities for them to speak and share what they’ve learned. Your Champions might consist of 5-10% of your overall Gemini user base and could also serve as a peer-to-peer support network for the global launch phase.

As employees at your organization get increasingly comfortable with Gemini, encourage them to share their success cases. Crowdsourcing can not only help expand success but inspire fresh ideas, sparking further new uses.

7. Have a Structured Focus on Change Management 

Change management is an essential practice area to help people realize improvements in productivity, while boosting employee satisfaction and overall business value. As presenter Dann Matos, Google Workspace Customer Success Manager, said, “Gemini, along with other GenAI capabilities, are here to support people to do more, not the other way around.”

Matos continued, “Training is not synonymous with change management….  Training is key, but it’s not to be confused with the totality of change management.”

Facilitate office hours sessions to field questions from Gemini users and allow users to provide live feedback. Office hours could be 30 minute sessions held twice a week. Customized user guides can also be particularly helpful resources.

8. Train your Users

Deliver proactive training and resources to your user base to ensure that they have the necessary knowledge and comfort to optimize these tools. Wursta offers training as part of our Gemini for Workspace Change & Transformation Services.

9. Measure ROI

The National Research Group surveyed more than 2,500 executive-level business leaders and found:

• 74% of enterprises using gen AI are currently seeing return on investment (ROI), with an additional 30-35% anticipating ROI within the next 12 months.
• 45% of the organizations who report productivity gains estimate employee productivity has at least doubled from gen AI.

Google recently surveyed their enterprise customers using Gemini and found:

• Users save an average of 105 minutes per user, per week
• 75% of daily Gemini for Workspace users say it improves the quality of their work

All great news. As an IT manager rolling out Gemini for Google Workspace, you may want to calculate the ROI your organization achieves. To gather the necessary numbers, consider taking the following steps:

• Determine what percentage of users’ work hours are dedicated to activities Gemini can help with, such as content summarization, content generation, and reading emails. 15% is a reasonable estimate.
• Multiply this percentage by employees’ salaries to translate saved minutes into financial gains
• For revenue-generating roles such as sales, calculate revenue gains due to increased productivity

10. Get Involved in the Workspace Community 

This Google Cloud Community page includes links to multiple tips and resources to maximize your productivity with Gemini for Google Workspace, including getting started support resources and help documentation. You can also get involved with the Workspace Community.

11. Sustain the Gains

A solid change management framework incorporates clear plans, impactful activities, and relevant metrics that measure progress and identify areas of improvement. Include active feedback loops so you can understand what’s happening, how end users are experiencing the product, and what gains they’re realizing. 

Stay tuned for part two, in which we’ll cover getting to work using Gemini organization-wide.