Platform Wants an End of Life Date for Every Runtime by Friday. Let Gemini in Sheets Fill the Column and Show Its Sources.

At a glance

• Put every service and its runtime version in one Sheet, then let the AI function look up end of life dates from Google Search.
• Open Sources on any generated cell to see the web pages Gemini used for that one value.
• Treat the sources as your audit trail: any row without a vendor page behind it goes back to a human.

Platform engineering wants an end of life date for every runtime in the fleet by Friday. Sixty services and a vendor page per version add up to a lost afternoon, and pasting chatbot answers leaves you with dates nobody can trace.

Who gets it: Google's 28 October 2026 Workspace Updates post lists Business Standard and Plus, Enterprise Standard and Plus, Google AI Pro and Ultra, Google AI Pro for Education, and AI Expanded Access. It is on by default for users with Gemini in Sheets enabled, and the cell level sources are in Sheets on the web. The rollout is gradual, with up to 15 days for the feature to appear from 20 October, so some accounts may not see it until about 4 November.

Why it matters

The AI function in Sheets could already pull real time answers from Google Search, but a column of dates with no provenance is hard to defend. Google's update says Gemini now attaches the exact web sources it referenced to each individual cell, so you can audit and cross reference every value instead of trusting the whole column. The same post says one request can now cover up to 3,000 cells, with better consistency from cell to cell.

That turns a lookup chore into something a reviewer can check, one click per row.

How to build a sourced runtime end of life sheet

We built these steps from Google's Help page and the 28 October post and have not clicked through them live since the update.

1. On your computer, open a new spreadsheet in Google Sheets. Put the service name in column A and the runtime with its version in column B, for example Node.js 18 or Python 3.9. Add headers for EOL date and Status in columns C and D.
2. In C2, enter the first formula from the block below. Help says you can type =AI() or =Gemini(), or use Insert, then Function, then AI. Passing B2 as the range keeps Gemini on that one row.
3. Add the second formula in D2, then copy both formulas down the rest of the rows as you would any formula.
4. Select the cells with AI functions and click Generate and Insert.
5. To see where a value came from, Help says to click into a generated cell, hover over the content and click Sources. If your account is still waiting on the rollout, that option may not show yet.
6. Add a Verified column and mark a row done only when its source is the vendor's own release or support page. Check the rest by hand.

=AI("What is the official end of life date for this runtime or framework version? Only output the date, or the word unknown if the vendor has not announced one.", B2)
=AI("Classify the support status of this runtime or framework version as supported, security fixes only, or end of life.", B2:C2)

Gotchas

• 350 or 3,000 cells: the Help page still says only the first 350 selected AI function cells generate at once, while the 28 October post says requests now support up to 3,000 cells. Neither page says which limit your account has today, so plan for 350. If a big batch stops short, wait for it to finish, select the next set and generate again.
• No automatic refresh: Help says generated values are inserted and the edit is attributed to you in version history. To update them, click Refresh and Insert. There is no undo, only regenerate.
• Keep context in the row: Help says the AI function cannot read your whole spreadsheet or Drive files, and cannot be nested inside another function such as IF. Pass a range and use separate columns.
• Sources are not proof: Our read: a citation shows what Gemini read, not that the page is current. Vendor schedules change, so date the sheet and recheck it before it goes into a report.

Sources:

• Fill with Gemini now provides cell level citations for web sources and supports larger requests, Google Workspace Updates
• Use the AI function in Google Sheets, Google Docs Editors Help

Recommended AI prompt

Copy this paragraph into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, or whatever AI you use.