Which AI apps can open your company's Google Drive? Find out in 45 minutes

Why look now

AI tools mostly arrive at work the same way. Someone signs up with their Google account, a consent screen asks to see and manage their files or read their email, and they click Allow. No ticket, no review. The tool now has the access that person has.

An employee who connects an AI tool to their account hands it the keys they carry, not a copy cut for the job. If that person can open payroll spreadsheets, customer lists and contracts, so can the tool.

How common is it? Material Security, which sells Google Workspace security tools, says a study it ran across 159 organizations using Google Workspace found 978 applications with active connections. That's a vendor's own research, published in a contributed Dark Reading article by its VP of Security, so read it as an indication rather than a benchmark. Material also launched a Google Drive Agent this month that sorts sensitive files into verdicts like Contained, Exposed or Overexposed and can revoke sharing automatically.

You don't need a new product to take the first look, though. Google Workspace already shows you which apps have been granted access. Here's a drill you can run in about 45 minutes.

Minutes 0–10: open the list

You'll need an admin with the Service Settings administrator privilege, which is what Google's help center says the page requires.

In the Google Admin console, go to Security, then Access and data control, then API controls, and open Manage App Access. Google's documentation describes three lists:

• Configured apps, the ones an admin has already set a policy for.
• Accessed apps, the ones that have actually accessed Google data in your organization.
• Apps pending review, the ones users have asked to get access to.

Start with Accessed apps. At the top, click Download list to get a CSV. Google says the download includes all the data in the table, even columns you aren't displaying.

One timing note from Google: details about an app typically appear 24 to 48 hours after someone authorizes it. Something connected this morning may not show up yet.

Minutes 10–25: sort what you found

Open the CSV and sort by number of users, then look at what each app requested. You're trying to put every app into one of four piles.

Known and needed. Your CRM, your e-signature tool, your scheduling app. These should probably be marked Trusted, or given only the specific data they need.

AI tools someone signed up for. Writing assistants, meeting note-takers, research tools, chat assistants with "connect your Drive" features. These are the ones to look at closely. Check what they asked for. Access to selected files is very different from full access to all of Drive.

Unknown. Apps nobody recognizes. Ask the users listed against them before deciding.

Abandoned. Tools from a trial last year, apps tied to people who have left. These are easy wins, and removing them costs nobody anything.

For anything in the AI pile, check two things: which Google services it requested, especially Drive, Gmail and Chat, and how many people use it. A tool used by two people with read access to selected files is a different conversation from one used by forty people with full Drive access.

Minutes 25–40: decide trust, limit or block

Google gives each app one of four access levels: Trusted, Limited, Specific Google data or Blocked. Pick per app, based on your piles.

Then consider the bigger levers, carefully.

Restrict a whole service. You can set a service such as Drive or Gmail to Restricted, so that only apps you've marked Trusted or Specific Google data can reach it. Google's help center is blunt about the effect: if you change access to Restricted, previously installed apps you haven't trusted stop working, and their tokens are revoked. Don't flip this on a Friday afternoon. Trust the apps people rely on first.

Restrict high-risk scopes. For Gmail, Drive and Docs, and Chat, Google lets you restrict a predefined list of high-risk permissions, such as full Drive access or sending mail, while still allowing narrower access. For AI tools, this is often the most useful middle ground.

Decide what happens with new apps. Apps you haven't configured are "unconfigured apps," and Google lets you choose what happens when users try to sign in to them. You can also turn on user requests, so people can ask for access instead of being silently blocked. Check what your setting is today. It's the difference between finding the next AI tool in this list and approving it before it connects.

Minutes 40–45: write the rule down

Finish by writing a short rule your team can follow. Something like: AI tools that need company Drive or Gmail access get requested through IT, they get the narrowest access that works, and we review the list every quarter.

Then tell people. Most employees who connect AI tools are trying to get work done faster, not dodge security. A clear way to ask for a tool works better than a block they'll try to get around. Say how long a request usually takes, and who decides, so asking feels faster than working around it.

A few things this drill doesn't cover. It doesn't tell you what's in your files or how they're shared, which is the problem tools like Material's Drive Agent are aimed at. It won't tell you much about Google's own apps, since Google's help center notes that OAuth scopes aren't shown for Google-owned apps. And it doesn't cover tools people use with personal accounts and copy-paste.

When the list is longer than you expected

If the drill turns up dozens of AI tools, that's useful information, not a crisis. It tells you what your team actually wants AI to do. Often the best next step is to pick one or two approved tools, or build an internal assistant with the narrow access each job needs, so people stop connecting new ones.

That's the work our AI applications and agents team does: building AI tools that only reach the data they should, and setting up the access rules around them. Talk to us.

Related work: Spin Market.