This week in AI: Sheets shows its sources, Slides restyles, health rules

Ask an AI to fill a column of supplier phone numbers and it will happily give you a column of supplier phone numbers. The old problem was that you could not tell which ones were real. This week, one of the tools you may already pay for started showing its work.

Three developments from the past week matter to a business your size. Two are new features in Google Workspace. One is a signal from Canada's privacy regulators about where the rules for health-care AI are heading.

Sheets now shows the source behind each AI-filled cell

On October 28, Google announced that Fill with Gemini in Google Sheets gives a citation for the web source behind each cell it generates. It also handles bigger jobs: one request can now cover up to 3,000 cells.

Fill with Gemini is the feature that writes values into cells for you, such as looking up a company's head office city or sorting a list of products into categories. Until now you got an answer and had to trust it.

The speed figure comes from Google's own study, so read it as a vendor claim. The citations are the part worth caring about. They turn "the AI says so" into "here is the page it read", and that page is something you can open.

The feature is on by default for users who have Gemini in Sheets enabled. Google lists Business Standard and Plus, Enterprise Standard and Plus, and the Google AI Pro and Ultra plans. Admins can manage access to Gemini features through the Admin console. The rollout is gradual and may take up to 15 days to appear.

What it means for you. If someone in your office builds lists by hand, such as supplier contacts, competitor pricing, or a spreadsheet of leads to research, this removes a lot of typing. A citation does not make a cell correct. A source can be out of date or misread. Spot-check a handful of rows before anything reaches a quote or an invoice.

What to do. Nothing urgent. Try it on a low-stakes list, open five citations, and see how often the cell matches the page.

Slides can restyle a whole deck from one prompt

On October 30, Google posted that Gemini in Google Slides can edit multiple slides or an entire presentation from a single instruction in the side panel. Examples Google gives include bulk style updates and matching the look of another presentation.

The edits land on normal, editable slides, and you can undo them or roll back through version history. That safety net matters more than the feature itself. A deck-wide change you cannot reverse is a risk. One you can reverse in a click is a time saver.

There are limits worth knowing before you plan around it:

• It is English only at launch.
• The rollout is slow, starting October 29, and may take longer than 15 days to show up for you.
• There is no admin control for it.
• Through at least December 1, Workspace customers get promotional higher limits for multi-slide presentations. After that, per-user limits apply, and Google's post does not say what they are.

The plan list matches Sheets: Business Standard and Plus, Enterprise Standard and Plus, and Google AI Pro and Ultra, plus an education add-on.

A day earlier, Google also said you can create, preview and edit files directly in the Gemini app, including slide decks, spreadsheets, documents and PDFs. Files can be opened in Slides or Sheets, downloaded, or saved to Drive. It is available to all users now, in every language the Gemini app supports, and it has no admin control.

What it means for you. If you rebuild the same proposal deck for every prospect, or you have ever spent an evening making slides match your brand colours, this is the sort of chore it can take off your plate. It will not write a good pitch. It will make a decent pitch look consistent.

What to do. Try it on a copy of an existing deck, not the one going to a client tomorrow. Check that fonts, logos and numbers survived the restyle. Because there is no admin switch, think about who in your business is already using the Gemini app and what they paste into it.

Privacy regulators want legal rules for AI in health care

On October 29, Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner published a resolution passed by Canada's federal, provincial and territorial privacy commissioners and ombuds at their annual meeting in Ottawa. It calls for the responsible use of AI in health care and health research.

The resolution asks governments to line up their laws with six principles for AI systems: privacy protective, valid and reliable, safe, human rights affirming, transparent, and accountable. It also asks them to "legally require all relevant parties who develop, procure, and use AI systems in health care" to put governance and accountability frameworks in place.

Note the word "procure". A clinic that buys an AI note-taking tool or phone assistant is a party that procures. The regulators are not only talking about the companies that build the software.

The regulators also said they will keep pushing for laws, coordinate on enforcement, and issue guidance. Ontario's commissioner, Patricia Kosseim, is quoted in the release.

What it means for you. This is a resolution, not a law. Nothing changed for your practice on October 29, and the release does not set a date or a penalty. It does tell you what a future rule probably looks like: a written framework showing which AI tools you use, what data they see and who is accountable.

If you run a dental, physio or medical clinic, you can get ahead of it cheaply. We covered the privacy catch for clinics earlier this month. The short version is the same: know where patient information goes before a tool touches it.

What to do. Write a one-page list of every AI tool your staff use, what information goes into each, and who signs off on it. If you do not run a clinic, you can skip this one.

What we're watching

Three things are still open after this week.

• Google's Slides limits after December 1. The promotional limits end, and the post does not say what replaces them. If you build decks at volume, wait to see before paying for a higher plan.
• Whether the citations hold up. Sources on every cell is a good idea. It is only as good as the pages being cited, and we will see how it behaves on messy business data.
• A federal or Ontario health AI rule. The commissioners say they will keep pressing. A bill would change what clinics must document.

Where to start

1. Pick one list your team builds by hand and try Fill with Gemini on it, then open five citations to see how accurate it is.
2. Try Slides' deck-wide editing on a copy of an old deck, never on a live client file.
3. If you handle patient information, write down every AI tool in use, what data goes in and who is accountable.

If you want a second pair of eyes on any of it, you can book a call with Trimotech.