This week in AI: Goldman's small-business push, Gemini in Vault, skills

Most small businesses already use AI. Far fewer have built it into how the work gets done. That gap is the story behind one of this week's headlines, and it shows up in the other two as well.

Three developments from the past week matter to a business your size. One is a big bank's money and training. One is a compliance tool in Google Workspace. One is a new menu in Gemini that is easy to switch on without thinking about it.

Goldman Sachs puts $500 million behind small-business AI training

On Thursday, October 22, Goldman Sachs launched a Small Business AI Institute. It is part of a $500 million expansion of the bank's 10,000 Small Businesses program, which the bank describes as philanthropic. Google, Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta are named as partners that will supply AI training and tools.

The more useful part is the survey behind it. Goldman surveyed more than 2,400 graduates of the program in 2026.

Read those numbers with care. The people surveyed finished a business-education program, so they are probably keener on new tools than the average owner. The figures also come from the bank, and the article does not give the full survey method. As a rough picture of where motivated small firms are, though, it is believable: lots of them have tried AI, and few have made it part of the daily routine.

Why it matters to you. If you are in Canada, probably not directly. The article does not say where the program runs, what it costs or who qualifies, and Goldman's 10,000 Small Businesses program is a US program. We could not find anything saying the institute reaches Canadian firms.

What to do. Nothing yet. If you want the free training, look on Goldman's own site for eligibility and location before you spend time on it. The takeaway for the rest of us is the 15% figure. Trying a tool is easy. Building it into how invoices, quotes or customer replies actually get done is the hard part, and it is where most of the value sits.

Google Vault can now export what your staff told Gemini

On the same day, Google announced that Vault now supports filtered exports for Gemini in Workspace. Vault is the records and legal-discovery tool inside Google Workspace. Until now, it was hard to answer a plain question: what have people at the company been typing into Gemini?

An administrator can now pick specific users, or a group of up to 5,000, choose a date range and export the matching conversations as a file. The export includes the prompts, Gemini's answers, generated attachments, links to the Drive files or Gmail threads that were referenced, and citations. It covers Gemini in Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Meet, when conversation history is on.

Three limits are worth knowing:

• It is plan-dependent. Google lists Business Plus, Frontline Standard and Plus, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Standard and Plus, the Education plans, and the Vault add-on. The cheaper Business plans are not on that list.
• It is not finished. Google says retention rules and litigation holds for Gemini in Workspace are not available yet and will follow in later releases.
• It is for admins. Staff do not get a setting for it. Admins can, however, set how long conversation history is kept, or stop users deleting it by hand.

Why it matters to you. Say a customer dispute, an employee complaint or a privacy request lands on your desk, and someone had pasted the details into an AI chat. Being able to find that conversation is useful. It also cuts the other way: staff should know their AI chats at work can be exported, in the same way their work email can be.

That ties into privacy law. Under PIPEDA, the federal privacy law for private-sector businesses, you remain responsible for the personal information you handle, including what your staff put into a tool. In Ontario, the privacy and human rights commissioners issued joint principles for responsible AI use in January: validity and reliability, safety, privacy protection, human rights, transparency and accountability. They are not binding law, but the commissioners say they will use them when judging whether AI adoption fits existing obligations. Being able to see what staff do with AI is a practical step toward the accountability part.

What to do. If you run Google Workspace, check which plan you are on and whether Vault is included. Then tell staff, in a sentence or two in your AI policy, that work AI chats are company records. If you are on a plan without Vault, there is no need to upgrade for this feature alone. A written rule about what must never be pasted into any AI tool does most of the same work for free.

Gemini gets a Customize hub, with skills and connected apps

The third item is quieter. On October 21, Google described a new Customize menu in the Gemini app. It puts two things in one place.

• Skills. These are saved instructions for repetitive jobs, a consistent tone and voice, or a set structure for answers. If you often ask for "a polite reminder in our house style, under 80 words," you can save that once instead of retyping it.
• Connected apps. Gemini can link to more than 40 outside services as well as Google's own apps. People choose what to connect and can check or disconnect permissions later.

It is rolling out gradually on web, mobile and desktop for all Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers and personal Google accounts. Google's rollout began on October 13, and the feature can take up to 15 days to appear. Most connected apps are currently available in English in the US, with some in other English-speaking regions, Brazil and India. The post does not say which are available in Canada.

Why it matters to you. Skills are a real time-saver for the owner who writes the same five kinds of message every week. Connected apps are where you should slow down. A connected app is a door: once Gemini can see another service, whatever is in that service can end up in a prompt or an answer. An app you did not vet, wired up by a well-meaning employee, is how customer data ends up somewhere you did not intend.

Admins can review and manage connected apps and third-party integrations in the Admin console, under Apps, then Additional Google services, then Gemini.

What to do. If you manage Workspace, open that page this week and see what is allowed. Pick two or three skills worth building, such as your standard quote follow-up, and write them down yourself rather than letting each person invent their own.

What we're watching

Two gaps in this week's news are worth keeping an eye on.

First, Goldman's program. If it opens to Canadian firms, or if a Canadian bank or the BDC announces something similar, that would be worth a closer look. For now it is a US announcement.

Second, the Vault rules that Google says are still coming. Retention rules and litigation holds for Gemini are the difference between a record you can search and a record you can rely on. Until they arrive, treat the export as useful but incomplete.

Where to start

1. Check your Google Workspace plan and whether Vault is part of it. If it is, tell staff that work AI chats can be exported.
2. Open the Gemini settings in the Admin console and decide which connected apps are allowed. Block the rest until someone asks for them.
3. Write down one repetitive task and turn it into a saved skill. Test it on five real examples before anyone relies on it.

If you want help deciding which of these is worth the effort at your size, you can book a call with Trimotech.