Gemini is making me a better marketer with Guided Learning

The internet is an ocean of learning resources that can educate you on virtually any topic under the sun. That was perhaps the earliest pitch for the internet — you could learn about anything, from basic preschool science to advanced quantum computing, without leaving your home. We may have deviated a bit from that original idea thanks to endless distractions, but if you look hard enough, the internet still serves that purpose.

So far, I’ve relied on a mix of platforms to refresh my basic science concepts and stay updated on new approaches in journalism. My main problem wasn’t adapting to each platform’s different learning styles; it was finding exactly what I wanted to learn on the 10-odd mainstream platforms I know of.

I knew AI could solve this problem. I just didn’t realize Gemini would do it on its own — and this early in the AI era.

If you ask people for a one-stop shop for education, many will point to Coursera. I’d argue YouTube is the better answer. Yeah, YouTube is increasingly flooded with AI slop these days, but it remains one of the richest platforms for educational content and explainers. You’ll find some of the world’s top institutions — from Harvard to Cambridge — hosting highly sought-after lectures for free. You can also learn practical life skills like fitness or dance at every experience level, all on the same platform.

The problem is that YouTube makes you dig since properly planned, sequential courses are rare. You either hunt for a decent playlist, stitch together videos from dozens of creators (usually a botched job), or just give up. YouTube has vast knowledge, but zero structure, which makes it useless after a point, despite its depth.

So now, you move on to Khan Academy, Coursera, or one of the countless courses YouTubers keep cross-selling. I even use LinkedIn Learning quite a bit because it bundles genuinely high-quality courses with its Premium subscription.

As you can see, nothing lived in one place. I kept hopping platforms, learning their quirks, adapting to their teaching styles, and whatnot. It was the classic case of too many options — and none of them quite right.

Then one fine day — as the sun hit my face, movie-montage style — AI entered my life to fix all of this. I honestly expected ChatGPT to lead the charge, given its head start. Instead, Gemini came as a wild-card entry and took the lead. And I’m now all for it.

It’s been a few months since Gemini introduced something called Guided Learning. As the name suggests, it helps you learn whatever you want through a structured, guided path.

Here’s the key difference: human-led platforms are limited by tutor availability, platform reach, and predefined curricula. AI doesn’t have those constraints, and more importantly, it knows everything. And Guided Learning isn’t like asking ChatGPT to explain something in brief — it actually creates a guided, step-by-step lesson or course specifically for you.

When I open Gemini Guided Learning, I’m not scrolling through a finite list of prebuilt courses. I ask the question that’s been bothering me, and Gemini builds a course around that exact topic. The question can be anything — as weird or specific as you like — though I stuck to relatively sane use cases.

I wanted to understand how an app goes from ideation to shipping, without knowing anything about app development. I also asked Gemini to help me upskill as a marketer, coming from a journalism background. In both cases, the depth and interactivity genuinely surprised me.

This is where AI really shines. Gemini understood the context I was coming from. I wasn’t forced through a generic learning path that assumed a blank slate. Instead, I got examples tied to my current field, with analogies that helped me see marketing through a journalist’s lens — and vice versa. That personalization alone made Guided Learning feel leagues ahead of traditional courses.

On top of that, Gemini keeps things interactive. It quizzes you along the way to test understanding and aptitude. Get an answer right, and it explains how that applies in the real world. Get it wrong, and it gently nudges you toward the right answer while explaining why. If you ask, it’ll even generate images on the fly using Nano Banana to clarify concepts (shown above). Insanely handy stuff!

It’s like having a one-on-one tutor — except it’s AI.

Despite all this effort, Gemini is still a chatbot. Learning largely means reading — and reading a lot. No matter how well-formatted the text is, mental fatigue sets in soon enough. At some point, you just don’t absorb information the way you would from a video or audio explanation.

Gemini integrates well with Google Docs, Sheets, and Gmail, but it’s missing two crucial integrations within Google’s own ecosystem: YouTube and NotebookLM.

As I said earlier, YouTube is overflowing with educational content; it’s just incredibly hard to surface the good stuff. If Gemini could automatically pull relevant YouTube videos into a guided course, learning would instantly become more engaging and far less monotonous.

And if no suitable video exists, Gemini could use NotebookLM to generate an audio explanation — or even a simple video — on the spot. You wouldn’t have to manually copy an entire Guided Learning session into NotebookLM just to make that happen. A unified experience here would be a game-changer.

I’d also love to see a Google Docs-style left pane that lists sections and progress. For longer courses, it would make jumping between sections easier and help track what you’ve already learned — especially when you’re exploring multiple sub-topics in parallel.

Google’s got a gem in its hands

I’m not sure Google fully realizes what it has here. Gemini Guided Learning is a powerful, productivity-forward tool within the Google ecosystem. With better integrations and clearer positioning, it could give every major learning app a serious run for its money. Only if Google knew that I didn’t need to touch LinkedIn Learning or Coursera in weeks would it think about it more seriously.