10 Google Gemini Life Hacks Every User Should Know
Chances are you’re using Gemini, whether you know it or not. Thanks to Google’s ubiquitous presence, its AI chatbot is everywhere—in your email, in your documents, even in search results. Whether you’re a die-hard AI enthusiast or just trying to figure out if it could be used for something useful, there are a few tricks and tips everyone should know when working with Gemini.
But first, a little clarification.
It should be obvious by now, but chatbots are far from infallible . Never rely on them for research or fact-checking without first verifying the information they provide . You should also avoid providing chatbots with significant personal information—and remember, a chatbot is not your friend and cannot provide psychological support .
Artificial intelligence is good at interpreting natural language instructions and automating some routine tasks. It’s tempting to think it can replace creative tasks like writing or creating art, but if you’re considering this option, I strongly recommend carefully examining the results of any AI before implementing it into your workflow. Much of this may seem plausible at first glance, but ultimately turn out to be a hallucination that could ruin your career .
Understand how graduate students “role-play” and use this to shape your assignments.
One of the most important things to understand about chatbots is that, at a fundamental level, they act out a dialogue. Internally, each chat begins with a variation of the phrase “The following is a conversation between the user and a helpful chatbot,” and the LLM predicts what words might follow. This is called a system prompt. As an example, you can see Claude’s system prompt here , though most companies keep their system prompts secret. Understanding this dynamic can help explain, for example, why a Google search for “disregard” ( short for “disregard”) disrupted search : instead of treating it as a search query like any other, the AI saw it as an instruction in the middle of a conversation.
Knowing how this works, you can use this dynamic to better tailor your inquiries. For example, instead of asking “what is [disease],” you might ask “who are the leading medical experts on [disease] and what do they say about it?” While the first inquiry might force Geminis to rely on their own (unreliable) expertise to answer the question, the second directs them to people who actually know what’s going on.
Add custom instructions to simplify long or complex commands.
In Gemini’s settings, under “Personal Intelligence,” you’ll find a section called “Gemini Instructions” (previously called ” Saved Information “). This is perhaps one of Gemini’s most useful features, as it allows you to create your own instructions that will be referenced in all future chats.
For example, didn’t you think the query for “medical experts” from the previous section sounded too wordy? Well, you can create a custom instruction that will ask the chatbot to refer to experts every time. You can even create single-word commands to invoke much longer instructions. I’ve used this in the past, for example, to instruct Gemini to convert all subheadings in a document to H2s simply by typing “H2s.”
Use the Gemini feature to create custom Gemini chatbots to send emails to specific people.
Similar to user instructions, Gemini allows you to create “pearls”—isolated versions of the chatbot with their own instructions. This is useful if you want to communicate with the chatbot for a specific purpose, but don’t want to commit to following those instructions every time you interact with Gemini.
For example, you could create a Gem that helps you send emails to your boss, with customized instructions for your boss’s specific formatting preferences (for example, if your boss hates reading paragraphs that are more than a couple of sentences).
Use the Scheduled Actions feature to get daily clothing recommendations based on the weather.
If you perform the same task every day, you can delegate it to Gemini. In the Gemini app’s Settings section, select Scheduled Actions. Here, you can create recurring reminders and choose when and how often they will occur. (Keep in mind that results will be sent within an hour of the scheduled action, so if you need more precise timing, you may still need to start some tasks manually.)
This tool can be useful, for example, for getting a daily summary of specific topics or for clothing recommendations based on the weather in your area. If you connect Gemini to other Google services (more on that below), you can also use it to get a summary of the most important emails or events in your calendar.
Add automatic reminders to avoid sending messages from the wrong account.
One of the most useful uses of user instructions is setting reminders or alerts 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 your replies indicating you’re communicating from your work account to avoid confusion.
This method can also be used to leave yourself reminders of next steps to take in response to messages you receive. These reminders can be conditional, such as: “If my morning briefing includes an email from my boss, add a note telling me to take a Xanax before responding.”
Please indicate which sources you would like Gemini to cite to make the results more reliable.
Fact-checking in chatbots is one of the most challenging tasks, but you can make it a little easier by requiring Gemini to provide references and evidence to support its claims. Instructions like “always cite sources and provide links for further reading” are often helpful. (And this is another good example of using custom instructions so you don’t have to do it every time!)
Google already uses some cited source search methods in its AI reviews/Gemini results, but you may notice that the AI-selected sources are sometimes of lower quality than those found through a regular Google search. Therefore, it’s often helpful to specify which cited sources you’re looking for, such as Wikipedia articles, academic journals, or references from reputable institutions in your field. This won’t eliminate the need to verify the information yourself, but it can make it easier to find the sources you need.
Use the Temporary Chats feature to make your conversations more private.
Like everything Google does, Gemini collects a lot of data by default. Similar to Chrome’s incognito mode, Gemini has its own private mode called “Temporary Chats.” You can see this icon in the upper-right corner of the Gemini app, denoted by a pencil surrounded by a dotted line.
In this mode, chats become private, and you can’t get personalized results or save your messages. These conversations are saved for 72 hours, but after that, they become inaccessible. This doesn’t mean you should share personal medical information, for example, but it can be useful if you don’t want to ruin your search history.
Use Gemini to decipher text from an image.
I admit, there aren’t many tasks in which AI is consistently useful for me personally, but one of the rare exceptions is text transcription, which I use constantly . Every time I need to copy text from a screenshot—for example, when adding alt text to images online—I open Google Lens or Gemini to transcribe it.
I’m still trying to check how accurately the program rewrites the text, but if the text is clearly visible on a screenshot or image, then in the vast majority of cases the translation is accurate.
Use Canvas in Gemini to gain more control over how you perform certain tasks.
I don’t like when Gemini (or any other LLM tool) writes for me. But Gemini’s Canvas is a completely different matter. That tool gives you a space for writing (or coding), while Gemini sits off to the side, where you can occasionally use it to work on your own tasks without handing it control. For example, I like to use it to automate formatting changes.
Since I started using Gemini in apps like Google Docs or Sheets, it’s become better at interacting with the document you’re working on, so using Canvas may be a matter of personal preference. But it’s still one of the best ways to use Gemini for editing small programming projects.
Use the Connected Apps feature to get more accurate and personalized results.
This option can be a bit controversial, as you might not want to share too much personal information with Google. However, if you use a work account or an account that’s separate from more sensitive personal information, you can enable the “Connected Apps” feature to get more accurate results.
The “Connected Apps” feature (enabled in the “Personal Intelligence” section of Settings) allows Gemini to connect with services like Gmail, Google Calendar, YouTube, and many others, providing more comprehensive information for your queries. In some cases, this will be essential, such as if you want Gemini to summarize your emails at the start of the day. In other cases, it can be a useful addition, such as searching YouTube for information to answer your question.
Please note that by default, your Gemini conversations will be used to train Google’s artificial intelligence in the future. Therefore, if you have medical records or personal photos linked to your Google account, you should think twice before sharing them with Gemini.