Google Drive as knowledge
A chatbot that answers from your Google Drive files
Pick the Docs, Sheets, Slides, PDFs and Word files your team already keeps up to date in Google Drive. Your intoCHAT agent learns from them, answers visitors with what they say, and picks up your edits with one click or on a schedule. intoCHAT can open only the files you pick, and never changes anything in your Drive.
Visitor: How much is shipping to Austria for an order of 60 euros?
Agent: Shipping to Austria costs 6.90 euros for orders under 80 euros. From 80 euros it is free. Delivery usually takes 3 to 5 working days.
Visitor: And for Switzerland?
Agent: Switzerland is 14.90 euros, whatever the order value, and takes 4 to 7 working days. Customs duties may be charged on delivery.
Your answers live in Drive, not on your website
Price lists in a spreadsheet, the returns policy in a Google Doc, product sheets as PDFs, the onboarding deck in Slides: for many teams the most current version of a fact is in Google Drive. Copying that text into a chatbot by hand means it is out of date the next time someone edits the file. Downloading and uploading files again every week is a chore nobody keeps up. A Google Drive chatbot reads the files where they are and checks them again when they change, so the agent answers from the same documents your team works in.
Why train your AI agent on Google Drive
The files stay in Drive. The agent reads them and keeps up with your changes.
Docs, Sheets, Slides and more
Google Docs are read with their headings and lists, every sheet of a spreadsheet is read with its rows, and Slides, PDFs, Word files, text and Markdown files are read too. Each file becomes a source of its own.
Access to the files you pick, nothing else
intoCHAT asks Google only for the drive.file permission. It can open the files you choose in Google's own file picker and can't list, search or read the rest of your Drive, your folders or your shared drives.
Edits reach the agent
Click Sync now, or turn on auto-resync for a daily or weekly check. Only files modified in Drive since the last check are read again, and only files whose text changed are retrained.
Drive links stay private
Drive files are never shown as source links under a reply, and the agent sees a file's name but not its Drive address, so it can't hand the link to visitors.
One knowledge base with everything else
Drive files sit next to your website pages, uploaded files, Q&A pairs and Notion pages. For every question, the agent searches all of them and writes the reply from the passages that match.
How to set up a Google Drive chatbot
Connect Google Drive
Open your agent's Knowledge tab, choose Drive under Add knowledge and click Connect Google Drive. Choose your Google account on Google's screen and allow access. The tab then shows Connected as with your account.
Pick the files
Click Add from Google Drive. Google's file picker opens with a tab for your own Drive and one for shared drives. Select up to 10 files, open folders to reach the files inside, and click Select.
Let the agent train
intoCHAT reads the files, which takes a few seconds each, and starts training by itself. A message sums up the import, for example "3 added, 1 updated, 0 unchanged". Ask a question in the Playground to check the answer.
Keep it in sync
When you edit a file, click Sync now on the Drive option, or turn on Auto-resync on the Knowledge tab and choose Daily or Weekly. The agent then answers from the latest version without you uploading anything.
What intoCHAT reads from Google Drive
Google Docs as Markdown
Docs are exported as Markdown, so headings and lists are kept, which helps the agent find the right passage. If Google can't export Markdown, the plain text is used.
Google Sheets, every sheet
Each sheet is read as a heading with the sheet's name, followed by its rows. Up to 1,000 rows per sheet are read; the import message names a spreadsheet that was cut, so you can split it.
Slides, PDFs and Word files
Google Slides are exported as plain text. PDFs and Word (.docx) files are downloaded and read like uploaded files, and text and Markdown files as they are. Scanned PDFs without a text layer need OCR first.
Updates instead of copies
Picking a file again updates its source instead of adding a second copy, and a file whose text didn't change is left as it is. A file renamed in Drive takes its new name at the next check.
All or nothing
If one file can't be read, or the files would take the agent over its character limit, nothing is imported and your knowledge stays as it was. The message names the file when it can.
Team permissions
The owner and admins connect and disconnect Google Drive. Members with the Edit level for knowledge can pick and import files from the connected account, so give that level only to people you trust with it.
Encrypted access
intoCHAT saves its access to your Google account in encrypted form. The browser only ever gets short-lived access for the file picker, and the picker itself is Google's, so intoCHAT only learns about the files you select.
Frequently asked questions
Can I build a chatbot from my Google Drive files?
Yes. Create an intoCHAT agent, choose Drive on the Knowledge tab, connect your Google account and pick the files. The agent trains on them and answers visitors in the chat widget on your website from what the files say, together with any other sources you add. You don't need any code beyond the embed snippet.
Can intoCHAT see my whole Google Drive?
No. intoCHAT asks only for Google's drive.file permission. It can open the files you pick in Google's file picker and nothing else: it can't list, search or read your other files, folders or shared drives. On Google's consent screen the permission is worded for files you use with the app, including editing, but intoCHAT only reads them.
Which file types can the agent learn from?
Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, PDFs, Word (.docx) files, text (.txt) and Markdown (.md) files. Images, videos, Google Forms and other file types aren't shown in the picker. Folders can be opened in the picker to reach the files inside, but a folder itself isn't imported.
Does the agent notice when I edit a file in Drive?
Not on its own, unless you ask it to. Click Sync now on the Drive option to check all of the agent's Drive files at once, or turn on auto-resync for a daily or weekly check. Either way, only files modified since the last check are read again, and only the ones whose text changed are retrained. Auto-resync reads up to 30 Drive files per run and uses no website crawls.
What are the limits?
Up to 10 files per import. PDFs, Word, text and Markdown files can be up to 50 MB and 4 MB of text each, as for uploads. Docs and Slides can be as large as Google can export, up to 10 MB of text. Sheets are read up to 1,000 rows per sheet. All text counts toward the agent's character limit: 100K characters on Free, 500K on Starter, 1M on Pro and unlimited on Enterprise.
Will visitors see links to my Drive files?
No. Drive files are never shown as source links under a reply; only website pages get those links. The agent sees a file's name but not its address in Drive, so it can't pass the link on. Anything in a file's text can end up in an answer, though, so only import files you would share with visitors.
What happens when I disconnect Google Drive?
You choose. By default the imported files stay in your agents' knowledge as they are, but are no longer kept in sync. Tick the option in the dialog to delete them from all your agents too. intoCHAT revokes its access at Google and deletes the saved access.
Which plan do I need, and is intoCHAT made by Google?
Google Drive import is on every plan, including Free; your plan sets how many characters each agent can hold. intoCHAT is an independent product that reads files through Google's APIs. Google Drive is a trademark of Google, and intoCHAT isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Google.
Turn your Drive files into answers
Create your agent free, connect Google Drive on the Knowledge tab, pick your price list or policy and ask the Playground a question about it.
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