Google Drive Integration
Give your AI agent the ability to search, browse, and read files from Google Drive.
Connect Google Drive to your Chipp AI so it can search, browse, and read files on behalf of users. Your agent gets direct access to documents, spreadsheets, slides, and any other files stored in Drive — including Shared Drives.
What the AI Can Do
Once connected, your agent gains four tools:
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| google_drive_search | Search for files across Drive by name or content |
| google_drive_list | List files in a folder (defaults to root) |
| google_drive_read | Read the full content of a file by its Drive ID |
| google_drive_get_metadata | Get detailed file info: owner, sharing status, permissions |
Supported File Types
The integration handles Google Workspace files and standard formats:
- Google Docs — exported as plain text
- Google Sheets — exported as CSV
- Google Slides — exported as plain text
- PDFs, Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx) — extracted via document parsing
- Text files (JSON, CSV, XML, Markdown, code) — read directly
- Files up to 50 MB can be read
Connecting Google Drive
1
In your app’s builder, navigate to the Build section and select the Integrations tab. Find Google Drive in the list of available integrations.
2
Click the Connect button next to Google Drive. A Google OAuth popup will appear asking you to sign in and grant permissions.
3
Sign in with the Google account whose Drive files you want the AI to access. Grant the requested permission for read-only Drive access.
The integration requests read-only access (drive.readonly). Your AI can search and read files but cannot modify, delete, or create files in Drive.
4
Once connected, open the chat preview and try:
- “Search my Drive for the Q4 report”
- “List the files in my project folder”
- “Read the contents of the onboarding document”
Folder Restrictions
You can optionally restrict the integration to specific folders. When folder restrictions are configured:
- Search only returns files within the allowed folders
- List shows only the allowed folders when browsing root
- The AI cannot access files outside the configured folders
This is useful when you want the agent to work with a specific project folder or department directory without exposing the entire Drive.
How It Works
When a user asks the agent a question that requires file access, the agent automatically decides which tool to use:
- Search when the user asks for a specific file by name or topic
- List when the user wants to browse a folder’s contents
- Read when the user needs the actual content of a file
- Metadata when the user asks about file details (who owns it, when it was modified)
The agent chains these tools naturally. For example, “Find the budget spreadsheet and summarize it” triggers a search followed by a read.
Example Use Cases
- Internal knowledge base — Let employees ask questions answered by documents in a shared Drive
- Document lookup — “Find the latest version of the employee handbook”
- Data extraction — “Read the Q3 sales spreadsheet and tell me the top-performing regions”
- File discovery — “What files were modified in the marketing folder this week?”
Shared Drive Support
The integration works with both personal Drive and Shared Drives (formerly Team Drives). All API calls include Shared Drive support, so files in any Shared Drive the connected account has access to are searchable and readable.
Billing
Google Drive tool calls use your standard LLM token billing. There is no separate per-call fee. Reading large files consumes more tokens due to the content being included in the conversation context.