Adding image support to Gemini in the side panel of Google Drive

22/09/2025

Table of contents

What’s changing

Users have been able to use Gemini in the side panel of Google Drive to summarize one or multiple documents, interact with PDFs, have focused conversations about a specific Drive folder, create files and folders, and more. However, until now, this functionality was text-based only and did not account for images saved in your Drive.

Similar to the recent video announcement, we’re happy to announce that Gemini can now answer questions or give you summaries about images in Drive. Here are some examples of what you can ask Gemini to:

Summarize this image
Extract text from this image
Extract information from this receipt/invoice into a table
Generate alternate text for this image
Write a story about this image

Gemini is extracting information from this receipt into a table

Additional details

This feature is currently available in English only and works best for:

Scanned documents like contracts, receipts, invoices, etc.
Text-heavy images

Getting started

Admins: To access Gemini in the side panel of Workspace apps, users need to have smart features and personalization turned on.
End Users: To access this feature, double-click on an image from the Google Drive file list and click on "Ask Gemini" (star button) in the top right corner.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 25, 2025
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 9, 2025