Google Docs

Google Docs, free cloud-based word processor offered by the American search engine company Google.

Google Docs was originally built on the foundation of Writely, an early browser-based word processor with real-time collaborative editing. Writely was created by software programmers Claudia Carpenter, Steve Newman, and Sam Schillace in 2005. Google acquired Writely in 2006 after purchasing Upstartle, its parent company. In a late 2005 post on Writely’s company blog, Schillace framed the software as “the first of a new kind of application—desktop apps re-invented for the web.”

In 2006 Google launched Google Apps, a free browser-based software suite that evolved into Google Workspace. The release of Google Docs & Spreadsheets followed in October 2006. In its launch announcement, Google proposed Google Docs as an efficient means of collaborating on documents in real time rather than sending files back and forth. This was seen as an early move by Google to rival the offerings of Microsoft Office, especially Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.

In 2009 Google removed the “beta” label from their offerings. Following this, Google made further updates to expand Google Docs’ compatibility with other Google apps as well as third-party apps such as Microsoft Word and Grammarly.

Google Docs has also been updated with features powered by artificial intelligence. In 2019 Smart Compose, which makes automatic suggestions to complete in-progress sentences, expanded to Docs from Gmail (where it had been launched in 2018). In 2022 editable auto-generated document summaries became available in Docs’ left-side outline panel. Amid the rise of ChatGPT and other large language models, Google started rolling out Duet AI, which it refers to as an “AI-powered collaborator,” across Google Cloud apps in 2023. In Google Docs, Duet AI is advertised as being able to write text or rewrite existing text in response to users’ prompts.

Like the other apps in the Google Workspace suite, Google Docs is powered by cloud computing: users access the Web application through a browser, and data are stored on Google’s servers. Instead of using a local storage system where files can be accessed only from users’ devices, Google Docs files can be accessed from any device on which the user is logged into their Google account. Like Writely, Google Docs does not require any manual action to save a file’s latest version. When a user is connected to the Internet, changes are automatically saved. In the absence of an Internet connection, users can enable “offline access” to continue editing the document and have changes sync once the document is reconnected to the Internet.

With Google Docs, a document can be edited by multiple parties concurrently. Contributors’ changes are visible in real-time to other contributors and tracked in the document’s version history. Google Docs uses an algorithm known as operational transformation (OT) to reconcile simultaneous edits and maintain a single revision history.

In order to use Google Docs, users must have a free Google account or Gmail address. Google Docs is available at no cost or with a paid Google Workspace subscription.