This is usually asked as a fear: will it email a client something wrong, in my name, while I am at lunch? The setup I recommend makes that impossible, and it is the default.
What the connector can do
Anthropic’s help page for the Google Workspace connectors says Claude can search and read Gmail, draft emails, and send, reply and forward. It also says that by default Claude asks for your approval before each of those actions.
So the normal experience is this. You ask for a reply. A draft appears. You read it, change what needs changing, and approve it. Nothing leaves until you do.
Who controls the setting
On Team and Enterprise plans the owner decides whether members are allowed to skip that approval. A member cannot quietly turn their assistant into something that sends on its own unless the business has allowed it.
That makes it a policy decision, and it belongs in your two-page AI policy in one sentence: a person approves anything that goes out.
Why I leave approval on
- AI sounds certain when it is wrong. A confident, well-written email with the wrong date in it is worse than a clumsy one.
- Your name is on it. The client does not know or care which part a machine wrote.
- Reading a draft takes seconds. The time saved is in the writing. Approval costs almost nothing.
The line I draw
I think about it as how far a mistake can travel.
- Drafts and summaries: no risk. Let it work freely.
- Internal, reversible actions: filing, labelling, updating a list. Reasonable to automate once you trust it.
- Anything outward: email to a client, a message to a supplier, a payment. A person presses the button, every time.
Most of the value of AI in an office comes from the first two. The third is where the reputation of the business sits, and it costs very little to keep a hand on it.