There’s a good chance you either use a Gemini or not. Google’s ubiquity means its AI chatbot is everywhere—in your email, in your documents, even in your search results. Whether you’re fully onboard the AI hype train, or just trying to figure out if you can do anything useful with these things, there are some tricks and tips that everyone who touches Gemini should know.
But first, a quick disclaimer
It should go without saying at this point, but there are chatbots Far from infallible. You should never rely on them for research or fact-checking without doing your own work Verify the information they provide. You also have some personal information Sharing with chatbots should be avoided—And remember, a chatbot is not your friend, and that Cannot provide mental health support.
Whether the LL.M is Good at interpreting natural-language instructions and automating certain common tasks. It’s tempting to think that it could replace creative tasks like writing or making art, but if you’re thinking that, I Extremely Recommend looking closely at the output of any AI before implementing it into your workflow. Much of it may seem legitimate at first glance, but some may be deluded into the beautiful Ways to end a career.
Understand how LLM “roleplays” and use it to shape your cues
One of the most important things to understand with chatbots is that, at a basic level, they are role play conversation Under the hoodEach chat starts with some variation of “The following is a conversation between a user and a helpful chatbot” as the starter text, with LLM predicting what words might follow. This is called a system prompt. For example, you can see Cloud’s system prompt hereHowever, most companies keep their system prompts private. Understanding these dynamics can help explain, for example, why Google uses the term “ignore” (In short) Search broke: Instead of seeing it as a search query like anyone else, AI Overview sees it as a notification in the middle of a conversation.
By knowing how this works, you can use this dynamic to better tailor your requests. For example, instead of asking “What is (medical condition),” you might ask “Who are the leading medical experts on (medical condition) and what do they say about it?” While the former request may lead a Gemini to rely on their own (unreliable) expertise to answer the question, the latter may lead you to guide them to people who actually know what’s going on.
Add custom instructions to simplify long or complex commands
In Gemini Settings, under Personal Intelligence, you’ll find a section called “Notifications for Gemini” (formerly “Saved information“). This is easily one of Gemini’s most useful superpowers, as it allows you to create custom notifications that reference any future chat.
For example, does the request for “medical experts” from the last section seem a little too verbose? Well, you can create a custom notification by asking the chatbot to quote experts every time. You can also create one-word commands to give longer instructions. I’ve used this in the past to instruct Gemini to convert all subheadings in a document to H2s, by simply typing “H2s”.
Use “gems” to create custom Gemini chatbots to email specific people
Similar to custom notifications, Gemini allows you to create “gems,” which are essentially siled versions of chatbots with their own specific notifications. This is helpful if you want to talk to a chatbot for a specific purpose, but you don’t want it to follow instructions in every conversation you have with Gemini.
For example, you can Create a gem Which helps you email your boss, with custom instructions for the hyper-specific ways your boss likes to format things (maybe, say, your boss doesn’t like reading paragraphs longer than two sentences).
Use “Scheduled Actions” to get a daily recommendation of what to wear based on the weather
If you find yourself running the same task every day, you can allow Gemini to run those digital tasks for you. Under Settings in the Gemini app, select “Scheduled Actions”. Here, you can create repeating signals and choose when and how often they repeat. (Keep in mind, results will be sent within an hour of you scheduling the action, so if you need time to be more specific, you may still need to run some tasks yourself.)
This tool can be handy for things like getting daily briefs on specific topics or getting outfit recommendations based on the weather in your area. If you connect Gemini to your other Google services (more on that below), you can also use it to get a summary of your most important emails or events on your calendar.
Add automatic reminders so you don’t actually send a message from the wrong account
The most useful use of custom notifications is to set up reminders or alerts for you that can appear in your conversations. For example, if you have both personal and work accounts on your phone, you can set Gemini to add a note at the end of its replies that you’re chatting on your work account, so you don’t get mixed up.
You can also use this technique to leave yourself reminders that you should follow up with the responses you receive. These reminders can also be conditional, such as “If my morning brief includes an email from my boss, add a note that I should remember to take my Xanax before responding.”
Mention the types of sources you want Gemini to cite so that its results are more likely to be credible
Fact-checking chatbots are one of the biggest pain points of using them, but you can make it a little easier by requiring Gemini to provide citations and evidence to back up its claims. In general, instructions like “always cite sources and provide links for further reading” can help. (And this is another good use case for custom notifications, so you don’t have to do it every time!)
Google already provides some citations to begin with with its AI overview/Gemini results, but you may notice that sometimes the AI selected sources are of lower quality than what you can find from a normal Google search. To that end, it is often beneficial to specify what Kind of Citations you need, such as links to Wikipedia articles, scientific journals, or respected organizations in your field. It won’t get rid of the need to confirm things for you, but it can help you streamline resources a bit.
What do you think so far?
Use “Temporary Chats” to keep your conversations more private
Like what Google does, Gemini Collects a lot of data Basically. Just like Chrome has an incognito mode, Gemini has its own private mode called Temporary Chats. You can find this icon at the top-right of the Gemini app, indicated by a pencil icon surrounded by a dotted line.
When this mode is enabled, chats are private and you cannot get individual results or save your chats. These conversations are still saved for 72 hours, but will no longer be available after that. This still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to share, say, your personal medical information, but it can be helpful when you don’t want to hide your search history.
Use Gemini to transcribe text from images
I’ll admit, for my personal use, there aren’t a ton of tasks that I find AI helpful on a consistent basis, but one of the rare exceptions is text transcription, which I use. Continuously. Whenever I need to copy text from a screenshot—like when adding alt text to online images—I pull out Google Lens or Gemini to transcribe it.
I still check to make sure it transcribes the text accurately, but unless the screenshot or image has a very clear view of the text, it hits it dead-on most of the time.
Use Gemini’s “canvas” to gain more control over certain tasks
I don’t like to let Gemini (or any LLM) write for me. Also Gemini’s canvas is a different beast. This tool gives you a place where you can write (or code), while Gemini sits off to the side, where you can use it to occasionally work on your work, without delegating it to work for you. For example, I like to use it to automate formatting changes.
Since I started using it, Gemini has also gotten better at working on the document you’re working on in apps like Google Docs or Sheets, so using Canvas can be a matter of personal preference. But it’s still a great way to use Gemini to modify small coding projects.
Use “Connected Apps” to get more accurate and personalized results
This can be a little tricky because you don’t want to share too much personal information with Google. However, if you’re using a work account or an account that keeps more sensitive personal information separate, you can turn on Connected Apps to get more accurate results.
Connected Apps (enabled in Settings under Personal Intelligence) allows Gemini to connect to services like Gmail, Google Calendar, YouTube, and more, so it has better context for your queries. In some cases, this will be mandatory, such as if you want Gemini to summarize your email earlier in the day. In other cases, it can be a helpful value-add, such as searching YouTube to find information to answer a question.
Keep in mind that, by default, your Gemini conversations are used to train Google’s AI in the future. So if you have medical records or private photos linked to your Google account, you may want to think twice about sharing them with Gemini.
