Highlights:

  • Google Inc. has introduced a brand-new add on that allows users to develop Artificial Intelligence Models within Google Sheets.
  • The Simple ML beta version of the program is presently accessible. Users may download it for free – as an add-on to existing Google Sheets.

Google Inc. has unveiled a brand-new tool that enables users to create artificial intelligence models in Google Sheets.

The beta version of the tool, known as Simple ML, is currently accessible. It is a free add-on to Google Sheets that the users can download! One of the Google teams responsible for creating TensorFlow, a famous open-source AI tool that the search giant published in 2015, created Simple ML.

Google explained that Simple ML does not require machine learning skills to utilize. The add-on is available via a panel within the Google Sheets interface that users can customize without any writing code.

Engineers from the Google team that developed the tool detailed in a blog post, “Anyone, even people without programming or ML expertise, can experiment and apply some of the power of machine learning to their data in Google Sheets with just a few clicks. From small business owners, scientists and students to business analysts at large corporations, anyone familiar with Google Sheets can make valuable predictions automatically.”

To train AI models using Simple ML, users must first generate a Google Sheets spreadsheet containing rows and columns of data points. Then, users must define the job they intend to accomplish with Simple ML. The tool will then automatically train one or more AI models capable of carrying out the given task.

Simple ML covers two AI use cases at launch. The first consists of populating empty spreadsheet cells, while the second identifies cells that may contain incorrect data.

A retailer may use Google Sheets to generate a spreadsheet that details the goods and prices currently available in its catalog. If there are missing product prices, Simple ML can automatically add them to the spreadsheet. It accomplishes this by building an AI model that deduces what information an empty spreadsheet field should include by studying the file’s current data points.

The second use case that Simple ML enables is recognizing abnormal data items. The add-on may, for instance, assess if a text snippet was inadvertently inserted into a cell that should hold a number value instead. Simple ML finds data abnormalities by evaluating the correctness of a spreadsheet’s contents with at least 10 AI models.

“After a few seconds, after the model has generated a prediction, you may explore leveraging the outcome to better your business choices, automate activities or perform any of the unlimited applications that ML enables,” Google’s Engineers revealed.

Simple ML additionally contains a variety of enhanced user features. According to Google, the tool gives technical information about the AI models it develops and enables testing of their precision. In addition, Simple ML allows users to transfer AI models to Colab – a Google-developed cloud-based code editor suitable for machine learning and data science applications.

Alongside Connected Sheets, another advanced data processing tool that Google offers for Google Sheets, Simple ML is also accessible now. It enables the analysis of data housed in the search giant’s BigQuery cloud data warehouse using the Google Sheets interface. Users may handle up to a billion rows of spreadsheet data without having to write SQL queries.