Draft an email with a couple's average monthly grocery spending from a budget spreadsheet with Gemini Spark
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- by Jay Peters (The Verge)
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Outcome
The Verge's Jay Peters asked Gemini Spark to draft an email to their spouse with the couple's average monthly grocery spending in 2026, without naming the spouse or saying where the budget was; the spreadsheet in Drive doesn't have 'budget' in its name. Spark found the spouse's email address, pulled the monthly grocery totals from the right 2026 spreadsheet (including May's incomplete data), averaged them and put a draft in Gmail that used the spouse's first name and a sign-off the couple use. Jay's reaction: 'Wow, that's actually nuts.' Their wider verdict was that Spark still needs checking and isn't worth the $99.99-a-month plan on its own.
Agent
Prompt Recreated prompt
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Run this task now, exactly as written below. Everything you need is here, so start straight away and only stop if something required is missing or a rule below tells you to. Goal: Work out our average monthly spending in one category from our budget spreadsheet and draft a short email about it. Fill in before running: - Where our budget spreadsheet is: [FILE] - The category and months: [DETAILS] - Who the email is for: [NAME] You're not my accountant or financial adviser. Show your working, label estimates as estimates, and tell me which points a professional or the official source should confirm. Rules: - Use only the spreadsheet; show each month's total and the average. - Say if the current month is incomplete, and give the average with and without it. - Keep the email short and friendly, with the numbers in a small table. - Save it as a draft and don't send it. - If a site asks me to sign in, pause and let me do it myself (including any CAPTCHA or two-step code); never guess or store passwords. - Check facts that can change (prices, opening hours, dates, availability, rules) against the official source, and tell me anything you couldn't verify. Output: A draft email with the monthly totals and the average. You'll know it worked when: the numbers match the spreadsheet and the email is ready to send.
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Where our budget spreadsheet is
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Run this task now, exactly as written below. Everything you need is here, so start straight away and only stop if something required is missing or a rule below tells you to. Goal: Work out our average monthly spending in one category from our budget spreadsheet and draft a short email about it. Fill in before running: - Where our budget spreadsheet is: [FILE] - The category and months: [DETAILS] - Who the email is for: [NAME] You're not my accountant or financial adviser. Show your working, label estimates as estimates, and tell me which points a professional or the official source should confirm. Rules: - Use only the spreadsheet; show each month's total and the average. - Say if the current month is incomplete, and give the average with and without it. - Keep the email short and friendly, with the numbers in a small table. - Save it as a draft and don't send it. - If a site asks me to sign in, pause and let me do it myself (including any CAPTCHA or two-step code); never guess or store passwords. - Check facts that can change (prices, opening hours, dates, availability, rules) against the official source, and tell me anything you couldn't verify. Output: A draft email with the monthly totals and the average. You'll know it worked when: the numbers match the spreadsheet and the email is ready to send.
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Optional stronger version
Our rewrite with extra checks. The poster didn't test it.
Run this task now, exactly as written below. Everything you need is here, so start straight away and only stop if something required is missing or a rule below tells you to. Goal: Work out our average monthly spending in one category from our budget spreadsheet and draft a short email about it. Fill in before running: - Where our budget spreadsheet is: [FILE] - The category and months: [DETAILS] - Who the email is for: [NAME] You're not my accountant or financial adviser. Show your working, label estimates as estimates, and tell me which points a professional or the official source should confirm. Rules: - Use only the spreadsheet; show each month's total and the average. - Say if the current month is incomplete, and give the average with and without it. - Keep the email short and friendly, with the numbers in a small table. - Save it as a draft and don't send it. - If a site asks me to sign in, pause and let me do it myself (including any CAPTCHA or two-step code); never guess or store passwords. - Check facts that can change (prices, opening hours, dates, availability, rules) against the official source, and tell me anything you couldn't verify. - Add one line comparing this year's average with last year's, if the data is there. Output: A draft email with the monthly totals and the average. You'll know it worked when: the numbers match the spreadsheet and the email is ready to send. Before you finish: re-read my goal and constraints, check your answer against each one, and list anything you assumed or couldn't confirm.
Source
https://www.theverge.com/tech/941138/google-gemini-spark-ai-agent-hands-on
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