Preface

Most books I have written are deeply technical - this is not one of them. Here, I attempt to make state of the art AI approachable and usable to a wider and not necessarily technical audience. For those readers most interested in practical examples, you can skip to the chapter “Google’s AI Ecosystem.”

Since the 1980s, I’ve been deeply involved in the development of commercial Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and applications. My journey has led me to deliver AI systems and conduct research for organizations like Capital One, Google, SAIC, DARPA, Olive AI, PacBell, and Babylist. I have 55 US patents and I have written over 20 books on AI.

For my work and personal research, I use Large Language Model (LLM)-based AI tools from various vendors, including OpenAI, Google, and Groq Cloud. I also run open models from Meta, DeepSeek, Mistral, and Alibaba on my personal Mac system using Ollama.

This book is fairly narrow in scope: it is written for solo knowledge workers who use the Google AI Platform. Other related topics are covered in several of my books that can be read online at https://leanpub.com/u/markwatson.

For the purposes of this book we consider solo knowledge workers to engage in activities of freelance creatives, small business owners, solo software developers, independent marketing people, general consultants and independent researchers.

The best advice for young people starting their education or careers (as well as older workers who are updating their skillsets) is:

Learn to use AI as an effective copilot for your work and research.

Learn to be an effective copilot for AIs that are helping you.

These will be recurring themes in this book. Please note that I am using the expression copilot as a general term, and I am not referring to Microsoft’s and GitHub’s Copilot commercial products.

There are many fine AI tools that you can use for your work and choosing the Google AI platform is a good choice. For my work I like to choose a particular platform and “stick with it” until either a project is done or other compelling technology and tools surface.

Many developers and knowledge workers have begun using Large Language Models (LLMs) without fully understanding their functionality, limitations, and optimal use for practical applications and personal knowledge worker assistance.

My dual goal is to intertwine an understanding of core technologies with practical techniques for using AI effectively in your job.

We can also define the “Solo Knowledge Worker” by building on Peter Drucker’s foundational concept of the knowledge worker: individuals whose main capital is knowledge and who rely on their intellectual skills. The modern knowledge worker utilizes cognitive, relational, and communicative faculties, often in collaboration with technology, to perform their work. Their focus is on generating value through thought and expertise, rather than merely completing tasks efficiently.

Technology exists to serve human interests. My hope is that this book empowers you to be more productive in your work, freeing up time for the people and activities that bring you joy and fulfillment.

I hope that you both enjoy this book and find it useful!

We start with material that non-programming tech savvy readers will have no problems working through: a general introduction of available tools and then cover general “non-programming” skills that you will want to master.

The last part of the book is aimed at readers who have some knowledge of the Python programming language. The programming examples are designed to be both simple to understand and useful. For more technical and software-intensive material please see my other books at https://leanpub.com/u/markwatson.

I leave out most material specific to enterprise use of the Google AI Platform and concentrate on tools more likely used by individuals. As a result:

• We will concentrate on Gemini App, Google AI Studio App, and directly calling the Gemini model APIs (requires a simple to obtain API key)
• We will cover with simple examples the tight Gemini integration with the apps Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Meet, Google Drive, and Google Calendar.
• Relatively little coverage here for Google Vertex. Vertex AI is Google Cloud’s comprehensive, unified platform for building, deploying, and managing machine learning models and AI applications. If you are a professional software developer you can augment the material here with https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/docs.
• Little coverage of the Google WorkSpace product that is used by companies, schools, and government agencies. Individuals tend to use the Gemini app that interacts directly with data in the free Google apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, etc. I created a fresh Google WorkSPace account for the purpose of writing this book but most of the material pertains to the “free” Gmail and other Google apps (the setup I use for my personal work flow).

I would like to thank my wife, Carol Watson, for her unwavering support and for serving as the editor of this book.

I also want to express my gratitude to Leanpub for providing an excellent platform that makes publishing accessible and straightforward. I highly recommend Leanpub to other authors who wish to share their knowledge with the world.

I would like to thank the following readers who have reported errors or offered suggestions: none so far.