Daybreak - Why Google is forcing Gemini into everything you do at work

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Back in 2017, Google published the research that sparked the entire generative AI boom. But when OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, Google was caught off guard. Fast forward to 2025, and Google’s own AI, Gemini, is no longer a rushed response. It’s a full-grown product, one the company is pushing hard by bundling it with Workspace and Google Cloud. In India, that strategy is already visible. Enterprises are adopting Gemini for everything from customer service to search to creative media. But here’s the twist: India’s cloud market is big on adoption but light on innovation, which means price matters. And Google is betting Gemini will give it the edge.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too? It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Ramon, Ganesh, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

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the host of First Principles and the co-host of the 2x2 podcast. Hi, I'm Rahil, the host of 90,000 hours, the Ken's newest podcast about the future of career. and workplaces. And I am Snigda Sharma, the host and producer of Daybreak, our daily business news podcast. I'm Praveen Gopal Krishna. I'm also the co-host of 2x2 and the host of the best podcast of the Ken. It's called the Nutgraff.

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No, but actually that's true. First principles is about leadership, 90,000 hours. Of course it's true. What do you mean? But it's true. No, no, no. I just, you guys, now that we sat together, 90,000 hours is about careers. Daybreak is about news and what's happening.

The NutGraph is about connections and two by two is our business strategy. PGK, just a question. Did you think that when we come up with new podcasts at the Ken, we don't think if They overlap with each other or not? No, I just realized now that this is all together. It's nice. But yes, but why are we here? We are here because we're here to make a very special announcement.

Up until now, a lot of people assumed that the only way to access our very many podcasts was by having an annual subscription. We're here to tell you that's not the case anymore. And not an annual subscription to the Ken. You can actually access it by subscribing to the Ken on Apple Podcasts for a monthly plan. So you could actually try us out by signing up for a monthly subscription, check out all our premium podcasts, and if at the end of the month you don't feel you liked it enough, you can unsubscribe.

But I tell you, I challenge you, you're unlikely to do that because we put out a pretty solid podcast. All the details will be in the show notes of this episode. You probably don't think about it when you send an email or share a dog or hop on a quick video call. But in that small moment, you are choosing sides in one of the biggest technology battles of our time. And the fight is not about who makes the best spreadsheet. It is about who owns the future of artificial intelligence at work.

Now, here's the thing. Google and Microsoft are not just competing to sell you tools. They are competing to make sure that you never have to choose AI because it is already baked into everything that you do. And right now, Google is scrambling. It is building new sales teams. It is raising prices. It is bundling AI into every product that it can.

All in a race against Microsoft, which got their first weaving chat GPT into Word, Excel, team, Azure, you name it. But the battlefield is not just in Silicon Valley. One of the most important testing grounds actually happens to be India. Because India is where the numbers are massive. millions of businesses, billions of users, and a price-sensitive market that forces companies to prove whether their products are essential or just nice to have. So, inside Google, a shift is happening right now.

The strategy is no longer email first. It is Gemini first. Gemini is not just a chatbot. It is the spearhead of Google's campaign to win background from Microsoft. But here's the twist. Google actually invented the tech that made all of this possible back in 2017. Then OpenAI and Microsoft ran with it, and Google got caught flat-footed. So the question now is, can Google's bundling play, which is forcing Gemina into every deal actually work?

Or is it too late for the company that actually started it all? Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nickda Sharma, and I don't chase the new cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rahal Philippos and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Thursday, the 28th of August. Google employee told my colleague the Ken reporter Abhirami G that new teams are being created within the sales team to push Gemini forward.

That is the strategy in one sentence. Build teams, push Gemini, wrap it inside Google Workspace or Google Cloud, don't sell email, don't sell cloud, just sell AI by making sure that the customer cannot escape it. Now, if you're already paying for workspace, you will pay for Gemini. And if you're already on Google Cloud, you will pay for Gemini. And the hope is that the customer will say, fine, we're already in, why not just use it? But the problem is Microsoft. It moved first.

It tied open AI's models straight into Microsoft 365. into Teams, into co-pilot, and into Azure. So for a Microsoft customer, AI is not a decision. It's just there. And yet, Google still has cards to play. On paper, Google workspace looks strong. 45% global share compared to Microsoft 365's 29%. More than 10 million paying customers and over 3 billion monthly active users.

But cloud is a different story. Google Cloud just has 11% market share. Microsoft Azure has 24% and Amazon Web Services or AWS has 31%. And cloud adoption is sticky. Once an enterprise picks a provider, it usually tends to stay. So Google's pitch is simple. Even if a company won't switch from Microsoft Office, maybe it will pick Google Cloud and Gemini to build tools, store data or automate workflows.

Gemini, in other words, is not consumer-facing as such. It is not opening AI's chat GPT. It is a product to convince Indian enterprises to spend more. Google wants to brand it as the go-to-work companion. So Google doesn't want to be known just for Gmail anymore. It wants to be the company that sells AI for work. And this is ironic because back in 2017, it was Google scientists that wrote the paper that made modern AI possible. Then Open AI launched Shat GPT in 2022 and made Google look like it is slow.

By 2023, Google was scrambling and by 2024 it had kind of studied itself. And now, in 2025, at least in India, Gemini is the tip of Google's pure. So what does all of this look like in practice? It looks like Airtel using Gemini tools for customer service. Mintra launching a home decor feature with Imagine Google's image. generator, Nike rolling out visual search powered by Gemini's multi-modal API, looks like Dashverse, an AI entertainment startup, building comics, and even a 90-minute Indian mythology epic with Gemini, Vio and Lyria. These are not just demos, they are live deployments, real customers,

and that is why Google thinks that it can make Gemini the default in India. But the sales play is still about price and lock-in. Most Indian companies do not do not. juggle multiple cloud platforms. They pick one. And the vendors know it, so the pricing gets cutthroat. Gemini's pro plan costs $1,950 a month, almost the same as Chad GPD Plus, which is at $1,99, and also close to Claude Pro at $1,740. But then, as you all know, Open AI recently undercut everyone with an India-only Chad GPD Go plan at just $399 per month. Now, at the API level, Gemini 2.5 Pro charges $1.25 per million tokens for inputs and $10 for outputs. That is the same as GPD-5, but far cheaper than Claude Opus, which charges $15 and $75

respectively. But Google is also bundling hard. It even raised workspace-based pricing in India so that Gemini is included by default. You are paying for it whether you want it or not. That is the same tactic that Microsoft used with Teams. Slack was popular with developers, but Teams exploded simply because it came free with Office. A senior AI leader summed it up perfectly. In today's market, the quality of your tech is not the differentiator. It is how good you are at selling. And that is a question hanging over Google.

Because Microsoft has long-standing enterprise deals in India. AWS has first mover advantage. And Google? It is still figuring out how to crack the code. One angle now is students. Google made Gemini free for them in India, hoping that they will get used to it before they graduate. Another is also regulation. Google says that enterprises concerned about privacy may trust it more than smaller AI firms. In July, it even launched local ML processing for regulated industries like healthcare and finance.

And despite arriving late, Google does have very much. history on its side. Chrome was late to the browser war, but yet it won. Search was not first, but it became dominant. Former Google employees argue that that could happen with Gemini as well. Because Gemini is not just one model anymore. It is the brand for Google's entire AI suite. V-O-3 for video, chirp for speech-to-text, Gemma for open-source models. Google owns the whole stack, data centers, chips, and models. And it is pitching it all. as one subscription. That way, the question for enterprises is not which AI tools should I buy. The question becomes, why buy anything else if Gemini is already included? So, can this strategy

work? Google has nothing to lose in India. With the smallest footprint, it can undercut on price, lean on bundling and push for privacy as its differentiator. If it wins cloud and workspace share, AI adoption will follow. And if it does it. doesn't, then Microsoft and Amazon will keep pulling further ahead, leaving Google once again as the company that invented the future but could not sell it. So that is the story. Google invented the AI building blocks, Microsoft turned them into business. Now, in India, Google is trying to flip the script, forcing Gemini into every contract, every bundle and every cloud deal. But here is the real cliffhanger. In a market that is this price sensitive, will enterprises embrace

race Gemini because they love it or because they cannot escape it. And ultimately, that is what will decide whether Google finally catches up or stays stuck as a runner-up in a race that it started. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast and Extras. To subscribe, head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted by Snigda Sharma and edited by Rajiv CN.