Apps Script + AI with BigQuery | New in Data Studio, Sheets & BigQuery

Join us for a community session focused on the latest updates across Looker Studio, Google Sheets, and BigQuery, followed by an open call for speakers for future meetup sessions. This event is for data analysts, developers, business intelligence professionals, Google Cloud users, and anyone interested in learning more about Google’s data and AI ecosystem.

Session 1: What’s New 2026 in Looker Studio, Google Sheets & BigQuery
Duration: 25 minutes

We will review key updates, features, and changes from the last six months in 2026 across:

• Data Studio
• Google Sheets
• BigQuery

This session will highlight useful updates, practical examples, and ideas for how these tools can be used together for reporting, analysis, dashboards, and data workflows.

• Speaker: Rif Kiamil — Google Developer Expert

Session 2: Google Apps Script as a Lingua Franca - From Local Emulation to AI-Driven Automation
Duration: 45 minutes

Google Apps Script has evolved from a simple macro language into a serious development platform used by thousands of developers worldwide.

Drawing on Gassypedia data covering more than 1.4 billion GitHub files, Bruce McPherson will explore a public Apps Script ecosystem of more than 6,000 developers, 11,000 repositories, and 18,000 published Apps Script projects.

The session introduces gas-fakes, an emulation layer that allows Apps Script projects to run natively on Node-js using the same familiar Apps Script code.

Bruce will demonstrate how this approach enables:

• High-speed local debugging and execution
• BigQuery integration
• Secure sandboxed execution of Apps Script
• Multi-cloud automation using Apps Script as a common “lingua franca”
• Combining local AI models with Gemini to reduce token usage and cost

The session will also show how the Gassypedia BigQuery dataset and Looker reports can be used to understand the wider Apps Script ecosystem.

• Speaker: Bruce McPherson

Author and speaker on Google technologies. Previously head of architecture and IT engineering at Motorola and and Lucent technologies.

He is also the author of O’Reilly’s Going GAS: From VBA to Google Apps Script and has created training courses including Google Apps Script for Beginners and Google Apps Script for Developers.

Who should attend?
This meetup is suitable for:

• Data analysts and BI professionals
• Developers and engineers
• Google Cloud users
• Students and early-career professionals
• Community members interested in speaking at future events
• Anyone interested in Looker Studio, Google Sheets, BigQuery, or AI agents