Gemini in Google Sheets is getting faster, smarter, and easier to trust

Google Sheets already handles large amounts of data well, but add Gemini into the mix, and things get a lot more interesting. You can ask it to organize information, categorize hundreds of entries, or fill out an entire spreadsheet without doing all the tedious work yourself. The problem, however, is knowing whether Gemini’s information is actually correct. After all, nobody wants to spend more time fact-checking something that was supposed to save you time.

Thankfully, Google is addressing that. With its latest update to Gemini in Sheets, you can now see the web sources behind AI-generated information directly in individual cells. So, say you’re planning a vacation and putting together a spreadsheet comparing hotel prices, flight costs, and places to visit. If Gemini fills in those details using web information, you can now check where each entry came from without searching for sources yourself.

This should make things a lot easier, especially since AI often gets things wrong while sounding completely confident. A source doesn’t guarantee accuracy, but it certainly makes double-checking less of a hassle. For now, this feature is available in Google Sheets on the web.

Google is also making Gemini faster and capable of handling bigger tasks. The company claims it can now complete certain 500-cell tasks up to 55 times faster than manual entry and process up to 3,000 cells in a single request. For example, if you have hundreds of customer reviews to sort into positive and negative feedback, Gemini could categorize them in one go.

These improvements are available automatically to users with Gemini in Sheets enabled, and you can access the assistant through the Ask Gemini button in the top-right corner.

But AI isn’t the only thing getting attention. Google is also introducing a compact layout for pivot tables, which should be especially useful if you’ve ever struggled with spreadsheets that stretch endlessly across your screen. The new layout now groups them into a single column, with expandable sections to keep things organized.

Excel users get a nice bonus, too. Previously, importing an Excel file containing a compact pivot table into Google Sheets would change its layout. That’s no longer the case, as Sheets can now preserve the original formatting when importing and exporting these files. Everyone can use this feature, including users with personal Google accounts.