The responsibilities of an IT administrator continue to grow and expand. This is why I’ve been experimenting with Gemini and NotebookLM for IT Admins to multiply my efforts. Like many of you, I am the primary admin with very little extra help, so I have to find tools that allow me to multiply my efforts.

Security & Privacy Note: some of the ideas included below involve sensitive data. It is important that you use Gemini and NotebookLM through your Google Workspace for Education account to keep this data safe and private. Google’s AI products are covered under the same data privacy agreement as Gmail, Calendar, and Drive, which makes it safe for these types of applications.  

Here are 7 ways that I am using Gemini and NotebookLM as an IT admin

1. Privacy Policy Review

Reviewing privacy policies for classroom tools requires a tremendous use of time and energy. I created a Gemini Gem, trained with my district’s unique requirements, to quickly generate a policy compliance score. This has turned a long, arduous task into a 5 minute check. Check out this blog post to test out my Gem and make a copy that you can customize based on your school’s requirements. 

2. Review contracts NotebookLM

Digging through massive contracts for fiber internet, hardware leases, or software licensing is no one’s idea of a good time. Finding a specific clause often feels like looking for a needle in a haystack. I’ve started exporting these PDFs and loading them into a NotebookLM “Contracts” notebook. Once they are loaded, you can simply ask questions like, “What is the penalty for early termination?” NotebookLM instantly pulls the cited answers directly from my resources.

3. Write Custom App-script with Gemini

I don’t have a background in coding, but I desperately need to automate repetitive tasks (like updating a list of email aliases). I recently found some success asking Gemini to write a custom Apps Script for me. Just provide a highly specific prompt: “Write a Google Apps Script that searches the Admin Console for suspended users and moves them to the ‘Archive’ OU.” There is a bit of a learning curve for this type of project, but it can be worth it if you have a time-intensive task you want to automate. 

Related Post: App script fixed my problem (and I don’t code!)

4. Chat With Your School Board Minutes

Have you ever needed to remember exactly when a specific tech purchase was authorized or a new policy was approved? Instead of spending hours doing Ctrl+F searches through a decade’s worth of old PDFs, upload your Board of Education meeting minutes into NotebookLM. You can then query the notebook to “List all mentions of Chromebook insurance from 2021 to 2024” and get your exact answer, complete with citations, in seconds.

5. Build an IT Brain

Upload your district’s internal IT SOPs, network diagrams, and past Help Desk ticket exports into NotebookLM. This creates a custom, private AI that you can query to generate quick responses to common questions. No need to re-write the same step-by-step instructions over and over…just ask NotebookLM to do it for you! This is a great strategy for small IT departments AND large teams who want to share resources. 

6. Master regular expression rules

Regular Expression (regex) is a special code that can be used to identify patterns in data. Regex is supported in many areas of the admin console, Google Forms, Sheets, etc. I don’t know how to write my own regex rules, but I do know how to use Gemini!

For example, try asking it to: “Write a Regular Expression that detects student ID numbers formatted as two letters followed by six digits, so I can block them from being emailed outside the domain.” I recently used this strategy to create a custom data detector that powers data-loss prevention rules for a district. 

Related Post: How to protect sensitive student data in Google Workspace

7. Analyzing Audit Logs

The audit and investigation tool has incredibly detailed logs, but making sense of a massive CSV export to spot anomalies makes my eyes cross. You can export a specific audit log (like Drive sharing outside the domain or Failed Login attempts) as a CSV and feed it into Gemini Advanced or NotebookLM. Ask the AI to quickly summarize the trends, identify compromised accounts, or spot unusual after-hours activity. This strategy proved very helpful when I helped a district implement context-aware-access rules. We were able to use Gemini to evaluate our logs to identify potential issues with our initial compliance rule.  

Multiply your efforts with AI

The ability to leverage Gemini and NotebookLM for IT Admins makes them invaluable tools for small IT departments and overwhelmed IT professionals. Hopefully the seven ideas listed above will inspire you to find your own unique use for these incredible tools.

The tips and strategies listed above are similar to the ideas I share each week through my free email newsletter, The Google Admin Weekly. If you are ready to level-up your use of the Google Admin console, add you email address below!