Google Gemini Enterprise

Google Gemini Enterprise for department heads: a workplace assistant with an agent platform behind it

In Google's documentation, Gemini Enterprise covers three jobs at once: intranet search, an AI assistant and an agentic platform¹. The FAQ goes further and calls the Gemini Enterprise app an advanced agentic platform that brings the best of Google AI to every employee². Behind the app sits a second product, the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, which Google describes as the evolution of Vertex AI³. Each is bought on its own⁴.

For a department head, that split is the first thing to understand. The app is a seat based assistant that employees in every function can use from day one. The Agent Platform is where custom agents are built, and it is billed on consumption. Most department level agent projects will touch both. Google names knowledge workers in sales, marketing, finance, HR and IT or engineering as the people it serves⁵, so on paper the product covers every function in this guide. It places seventh because a department head must assemble the build team, the licensing and the agent design largely on their own, and because the department level evidence in the facts gathered for this profile is mostly example prompts.

Editions

Google sells the app in several editions, each shaped for a different kind of organization⁶. Business edition is for small businesses and teams of up to 300⁷. Moving up to Standard or Plus brings higher quota, unlimited seats, third party agents and Gemini Code Assist⁸. Frontline is an add on for Standard and Plus customers⁹, catered to frontline workers¹⁰. Government and education institutions get tailored offerings¹¹.

The main documentation covers Standard, Plus, Pay as you go and Frontline, and Business has its own help center¹². Business edition is a SaaS application on the web at business.gemini.google¹³, and accounts are created with a work email¹⁴.

How agents are built

A no code workbench lets employees put together custom agents of their own¹⁵. Google provides a prebuilt Deep Research agent¹⁶ and a Data Insights Agent in preview for Standard and Plus¹⁷. Standard and Plus customers can publish their own agents built on the Agent Platform or ADK directly to the app¹⁸, and external agents can be integrated through the Agent to Agent protocol¹⁹. Agent Marketplace holds agents built by partners²⁰.

Gemini Notebook Enterprise, a research and knowledge assistant, is offered alongside²¹, and up to 5,000 licenses can be bought by subscription²².

On the Agent Platform, each agent is given a unique, secure SPIFFE ID²³. Agent Gateway is the main entry and exit point for agent traffic²⁴, and Model Armor scans user prompts and tool responses in real time to block prompt injection²⁵.

Sales and marketing

Google's documentation includes an example prompt asking the assistant to summarize the best performing campaigns from last year²⁶. Business edition connects to HubSpot²⁷, which may matter to a smaller sales and marketing team. Business edition also lists drafting and managing customer communications using context from Google Search²⁸.

No sales specific agent or quantified sales result appears in the facts gathered for this profile. A sales leader would be building with the workbench or the Agent Platform.

HR

Business edition gives an example of onboarding new hires with Gemini Notebook²⁹. Permissions aware search³⁰ and document level access controls³¹ are relevant to HR, where many documents should only reach certain staff. Sensitive Data Protection can stop sensitive data from being ingested or indexed from connectors³², and it works with all editions³³.

IT

For an IT leader, the governance model is the main attraction. The app provides a single pane of glass to govern all agents across teams centrally³⁴. Enterprise editions are managed with IAM, Workforce Identity Federation for SSO, and source system ACLs³⁵. Cloud IAM limits access to the admins and users who have been provisioned³⁶. Agent identities are secured by default with Context Aware Access³⁷, and tool use rules for agents are written in plain language³⁸. To stop one person consuming too much, admins can switch on a single user quota limit³⁹.

Prebuilt connectors include Confluence, Jira, Microsoft SharePoint and ServiceNow⁴⁰, which covers much of an IT team's documentation and ticketing.

Customer support and operations

Google's operations example for Business edition is tracking inventory, speeding up data entry and automating purchase orders⁴¹. Frontline, aimed at frontline workers¹⁰, may suit store or field teams. No customer facing support agent or containment figure appears in the facts gathered for this profile. A support leader should plan the agent design and ask for a reference deployment.

Implementation: who does the work

Gemini Enterprise is self service. Licensing starts with buying a subscription for a billing account⁴², then allocating licenses to projects and locations⁴³. Assignment of licenses can be automatic or manual⁴⁴. Licenses belong to a Google Cloud project and a location⁴⁵, and subscriptions to a billing account⁴⁶. Before assigning licenses, admins must grant users at least the Gemini Enterprise User role⁴⁷. Seat subscriptions are monthly or year long⁴⁸, and the console caps the seat quantity⁴⁹.

That is a sequence of Google Cloud admin steps. A department head in a company without a Google Cloud administrator will need one. No Google delivery team that builds a department's agents appears in the facts gathered for this profile.

Starting a trial takes little effort. Standard or Plus can be tried free for 30 days⁵⁰; the landing page offers Plus at no cost for 30 days without sales assistance⁵¹; Business edition also has a 30 day trial⁵².

Integrations

Business edition connects to Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, HubSpot and Notion²⁷. Prebuilt connectors cover commonly used third party applications⁵³, including Confluence, Jira, SharePoint and ServiceNow⁴⁰. On the Workspace side, Drive, Calendar, Gmail and Groups stay in sync in real time⁵⁴. BigQuery can be reached through a federated data connector⁵⁵; in federated query mode the customer's data is left where it is⁵⁶.

Google's recommendation for third party connectors is Workforce Identity Federation⁵⁷. Those connectors interact with public endpoints outside Google's network⁵⁸.

Security and data

The certifications page covers Standard, Plus and Notebook Enterprise⁵⁹, and its list includes HIPAA, FedRAMP, ISO 27001, SOC 1, 2 and 3, and PCI DSS⁶⁰. For a department in healthcare, HIPAA on that list is a notable point; Nexus's 2023 terms, by contrast, say its services are not tailored to HIPAA⁶¹.

Encryption keys can be managed by the customer⁶², through Cloud Key Management Service on Standard and Plus⁶³, and an external key manager or hardware security module can also be used⁶⁴. In the global region, neither CMEK nor Access Transparency is supported⁶⁵. Each customer's data is kept isolated inside its Google Cloud project⁶⁶. As a SaaS product, it does not let customers apply their own network controls directly⁶⁷. Model Armor is included in every edition of the app⁶⁸.

On data use, Gemini Enterprise does not use prompts, generated responses or connected enterprise data to train Google's foundation models^69,70, and Business edition data is not used to train Google models or models for other customers⁷¹. Data residency options are the US, the EU and global⁷², and Standard and Plus let customers keep data in a chosen region⁷³. Access Transparency and Cloud Audit Logs come with the enterprise editions⁷⁴. When a user asks for data to be deleted, Google removes it within 60 days⁷⁵.

On the Agent Platform, Google does not use customer data to train or fine tune models without prior permission⁷⁶. For Models as a Service, customer data is kept for limited periods⁷⁷; logging of requests and responses starts switched off⁷⁸; and Grounding with Google Search stores logs for no more than three days⁷⁹.

Pricing and budgeting

Business edition starts at 21 dollars per seat per month⁸⁰. Billing for the app is monthly and per seat, and each user needs an active license⁸¹. On the Agent Platform, billing follows consumption on a pay as you go basis⁸². A pay as you go subscription carries no license fee⁸³; the customer pays each month for what it used⁸⁴. Partner model usage is billed as pay as you go⁸⁵, and prepaid credits are available for self serve billing accounts⁸⁶.

Standard and Plus per seat prices are not publicly stated on the pages we opened; the pricing page returned a not found page⁸⁷.

For a department budget, the seat price is easy to plan, and the consumption side is harder. A department that builds custom agents will carry both a seat line and a usage line. Bundled Gemini Code Assist entitlements for existing Standard and Plus subscriptions end on March 31, 2027⁸⁸, which matters to engineering teams that counted on them.

Limits a department head should weigh

Each Standard license comes with 160 Assistant queries a day⁸⁹, against 200 for a Plus license⁹⁰. Feature quotas are pooled across users in an edition, except storage and indexing⁹¹, which are pooled across editions in a project and location⁹². Older data stores, among them Cloud Storage, BigQuery and websites, fall outside Sensitive Data Protection content policies⁹³, and Microsoft files that are encrypted skip the content scan⁹⁴. With VPC Service Controls in place, a data store cannot be created until the connector has been explicitly allowed^95,96.

These are published limits, which is useful in itself: a department can check them against its expected volume before signing.

Running a Gemini Enterprise pilot in your department

A department that wants to test Gemini Enterprise should first decide which product it is testing. If the goal is a smarter assistant for the team, the app alone is the pilot, and a 30 day trial⁵⁰ is long enough to see whether people use it. If the goal is an agent that does a defined piece of work, the pilot also involves the Agent Platform, which is bought and billed separately^4,82.

For a small team, Business edition is the simplest route. It is priced from 21 dollars per seat per month⁸⁰, accounts are created with a work email¹⁴, and admins manage members and connector access without project level IAM roles^97,98. It suits a sales or marketing team of up to 300 people⁷ that works in Workspace or Microsoft 365²⁷.

For a larger department, bring in the Google Cloud administrator at the start. Licenses are tied to a project and a location⁴⁵, and users need the Gemini Enterprise User role before they can be assigned one⁴⁷. Decide the data residency setting⁷³ and whether Sensitive Data Protection will screen connector data³² before any HR or customer data is connected.

Measure use as well as outcomes. Quotas are pooled across users in an edition⁹¹, so a pilot should track how many Assistant queries the team consumes each day against the per license allowance⁸⁹. That number, and the share of staff who use the assistant each week, will tell a department head whether to scale up.

How Gemini Enterprise compares with Nexus

Gemini Enterprise gives every employee an assistant and gives IT a strong control plane^34,35, with a broad certification list⁶⁰ and clear data residency choices⁷². Nexus is built for a different job. It takes one department's role and delivers agents for it, with experienced consultants who build the first agent with the team, a first agent live in 4 weeks inside a 3 month proof of concept, and a price set per role automated with no consultant time billed⁹⁹. Its published results are tied to function outcomes, such as more than 10,000 sales rep hours saved a year at Lambda.ai¹⁰⁰ and $6M extra lifetime value at Orange¹⁰¹. A company that wants a workplace assistant for everyone, with agents added over time, will look at Gemini Enterprise. A department head who needs one function's work automated and measured this quarter will find Nexus closer to the need.

Verdict

Gemini Enterprise places seventh in this function by function guide. It is a strong horizontal product, with a published Business price⁸⁰, wide certifications⁶⁰, and governance that IT will recognize³⁵. For an individual department, it asks for Google Cloud administration^42,47, a split between seat and consumption billing^81,82, and an in house build of any agent beyond the prebuilt ones. Shortlist it when the company already runs on Google Workspace and wants an assistant for every employee first.