As an experiment, I’m testing studio flows in Google Workspace Studio to see if they will help me.
Nothing destructive: if I test something that could be destructive, it will destroy things. I’m confining my testing to the informational.
Why?
Although I believe in human control of agents, I would like to have some agents that would help me do whatever it is that Bredemarket does. Performing analysis for paying clients. Telling wildebeest tales with public domain music. Whatever.
And since I’m already in the Google ecosystem, perhaps Google Workspace Studio may be the tool for me.
How?
Google Workspace Studio includes a capability called Flows. I asked Google Gemini to describe Flows in a paragraph. Naturally, I got a long paragraph, which follows.
In Google Workspace Studio, a flow is an automated, multi-step sequence designed to streamline routine tasks across Google Workspace apps (like Gmail, Drive, Forms, and Chat) as well as connected third-party tools. Built on a no-code interface, a flow relies on an initial “starter”—such as receiving an email, submitting a form, or running on a scheduled timer—to trigger a series of programmatic action steps and AI-driven tasks powered by Gemini. Users can build flows manually or by describing what they want in plain language, allowing the flow to dynamically pass variables between apps—for instance, extracting details from an incoming customer email, using AI to summarize the context, and automatically posting follow-up tasks to a team workspace.
What?
I’m still in the experimental phase, but one of my three flows sends me a message in Google Chat when I have a meeting in an hour.
Bredemarket normally doesn’t have Friday night meetings, so I had to create one to test the flow.
After some trial and error, I got the flow to work. (Google Meet link partially obscured. I don’t trust you.)
Benefits?
I will have to see if these flows benefit me or not. All three of my current flows send messages to my Google Chat. Will these messages help me get stuff done, or will they clutter my chat and cause me to dread them?
Time will tell.
As for me, I have to get ready for my fake meeting in less than a half hour.
