Scenario 77: Classifying customer records with Sheets AI

Who and in what situation

Can is a customer service team leader at an e-commerce company. He organizes return, exchange, delivery and satisfaction feedback into a consistent category structure for the weekly report.

How it is done today

Can reads each message, manually enters a label in the category column and moves ambiguous records to another sheet.

How to do it with AI

1. Open the Sheets file containing the messages. Enter =AI() or =Gemini() in an empty category cell; alternatively, use Insert > Function > AI. [78]
2. In the prompt, specify the category definitions and the cell to classify: =AI("Classify the customer message as return, exchange, delivery or other. Write only the category name.", C2).
3. Select the cell and click Generate and insert. Check the first examples with the customer service leader; if necessary, clarify the prompt and use Refresh and Insert. [78]
4. To use a cell range as the source, select the relevant range. Gemini in Sheets can work with the range selected as the source. [133]
5. Before including the results in reporting, manually correct any that are ambiguous, blank or appear incorrect.

Example prompt

Assign this customer message to a single category using {category_definitions}. If the message fits two categories, write “review”. Return only the category name.

Evidence and real-world example

No published customer case study was found; the official documentation shows that the AI function can generate text, summarize, categorize and perform sentiment analysis, while the source document also explains range selection. [78] [133]

Points to consider

The feature requires an eligible Workspace or Google AI plan; some users may need Workspace Experiments or beta access. [78] The AI function returns only text and does not access the entire spreadsheet or other files in Drive. [78] Output cannot be undone; it must be regenerated, and a maximum of 350 selected AI cells can be generated at a time. [78] Do not copy customer data into the feedback screen; Google states that feedback must not contain sensitive or confidential data. [78]

Sources for this scenario

78. Use the AI function in Google Sheets (support.google.com)
133. Use sources with Google Workspace with Gemini (support.google.com)