✨ Gemini for Google Docs Review: Smart but Hands-Off—Why It Needs to Do More

AI has become a game-changer for productivity, and Google is stepping up with Gemini for Google Docs—an AI assistant designed to help you write, summarize, and interact with your content more intelligently.

But here’s the catch: while Gemini is great at analyzing what’s in your doc, it still can’t take action inside the document itself. And in 2025, that’s a big limitation.

In this review, we’ll walk through what Gemini can do—and more importantly, what it can’t. From summarizing paragraphs to formatting requests, Gemini performs well in understanding—but not in execution. And as a user, this missing ability to update the document is exactly where it falls short.

🧠 Gemini Can Summarize Well—But Can’t Insert the Summary

Let’s start with the good stuff. We asked Gemini to summarize the first paragraph of a Google Doc.

✅ The result? A clean, concise summary that reflected the core idea of the paragraph.

❌ The issue? Gemini could not insert that summary directly above the first paragraph. Instead, it returned the summary in the side panel—leaving us to manually copy, paste, and format it.

📍 Why This Matters

In real-world workflows—writing meeting notes, project briefs, or educational material—summaries are a time-saver. If Gemini could automatically insert those summaries where they belong, it would become a powerful assistant.

Use case example: A team lead reviewing a strategy document might want summaries above each section. Without direct editing ability, Gemini adds a step instead of removing one.

✅ Top searched phrases include

• Gemini for Google Docs summary

• AI-generated summary Google Docs

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🔤 Gemini Can’t Make Text Bold—Even When It Understands the Task

Next, we tested whether Gemini could make the first line of the first paragraph bold.

Here’s what happened:

🤖 Gemini understood the request

🚫 But it didn’t apply bold formatting

📍 Why This Matters

Formatting is fundamental in documents—especially for:

• Emphasizing key ideas

• Structuring headers

• Improving readability

If Gemini can’t perform basic formatting commands, it falls short of being a real productivity tool.

Use case example: A content writer wants to bold all opening lines in a document draft. Ideally, Gemini should be able to do this on command—not just suggest it.

✅ This feature ranks highly in searches like

• Gemini not bolding text in Google Docs

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🟨 Gemini Can’t Highlight Text—Even with Clear Instructions

Finally, we asked Gemini to highlight the first sentence of a paragraph in yellow. This is a common way to draw attention to key points or pending changes in a document.

❌ The result? Gemini indicated it cannot modify the document to highlight the first line in yellow—but can only generate text responses

📍 Why This Matters

Highlighting is an essential feature in:

• Education

• Collaborative editing

• Knowledge management

Imagine a professor marking key concepts or a team lead flagging action items. Highlighting should be instant and voice-commandable, not manual.

Use case example: A student reviewing class notes could highlight definitions with Gemini—if only it could act directly in the doc.

✅ Top searched phrases include:

• Gemini highlight text yellow

• Google Docs AI can’t highlight

• Gemini not updating document formatting

📊 Quick Feature Comparison

✅ Feature Tested: Summary of First Paragraph

Gemini’s Response: Accurate summary
Did It Update the Document? ❌ No insertion in doc

✅ Feature Tested: Make First Line Bold

Gemini’s Response: Understood but no action
Did It Update the Document? ❌ Formatting not applied

✅ Feature Tested: Highlight Text in Yellow

Gemini’s Response: Understood but didn’t execute
Did It Update the Document? ❌ No highlight applied

🔧 The Core Issue: Gemini Can’t Edit Your Google Docs

Across all three tasks, Gemini for Google Docs showed one consistent pattern:

🛑 Gemini can understand what you want—but it can’t do it.

This limitation holds Gemini back from becoming a true productivity tool. Without the ability to insert, edit, or format text directly in the document, it remains more of an advisory assistant than an active writing partner.

📍 Where This Hurts

• Writers: Can’t use AI to format drafts or restructure sections

• Project Managers: Can’t insert summaries or highlights into status docs

• Students/Teachers: Can’t mark key information quickly during lectures or reviews

When your AI understands but doesn’t act, the time savings are cut in half.

🧩 What Gemini Needs Next

For Gemini to become a truly useful AI assistant in Google Docs, it must evolve from being a passive observer to an active editor.

Here’s what we hope to see:

• ✍️ Ability to insert content directly into the document

• 🖍️ Formatting support (bold, italics, underline)

• 🎨 Highlighting by color via simple prompts

• 🔁 Inline updates (rewrite, replace, reformat)

These updates would finally make Gemini a hands-on assistant, rather than just a helpful sidebar.

🙌 Final Verdict: Strong Comprehension, But Missing Core Functionality

To be fair, Gemini is still a promising tool. It understands language well, summarizes content accurately, and is easy to use inside the familiar Google Docs interface.

But without the ability to edit and format the document directly, Gemini falls short of delivering a fully integrated writing experience.

If you’re looking for an AI assistant to analyze, guide, and suggest, Gemini does the job. But if you need one that can take real action inside your Google Docs—you’ll have to wait for a future update.

📣 Have You Tried Gemini Yet?

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