Connections to your real work

Gmail, Drive, GitHub, calendars. Signed-in access with a scope.

A connection is a signed-in bridge. It lets the assistant reach a service you already use: mail, drive, issues, notes, a calendar.

In 2026 this is a standard product surface. Grok ships a connector catalog plus Bring Your Own MCP. Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini each have their own catalogs. Microsoft Copilot lives inside the Microsoft account. The brand names differ. The questions do not: what can it read, what can it write, and who approved that.

Lab

A catalog of bridges

Gmail

Read mail, drafts. Send is extra.

Seen in

Grok, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude

Names and availability change. Open the product’s connector page before you grant anything.

How to turn one on without drama

01
Start in a throwaway account or a quiet folder
Do not begin with the CEO inbox. Connect a sample label or a practice repo.
02
Read the scopes
“See your mail” is not “send as you.” Decline write access until a real task needs it.
03
Ask a read-only question first
“List the subject lines from today. Do not open attachments. Do not draft replies.”
04
Disconnect when the job ends
Standing connections are standing keys. Catalogs make this easy. Use that.

Check

You connect Google Drive so the model can summarize a folder. Which grant is the smallest useful one?

Choose an answer to see why.

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