I’m working on configuring an automated Agent to handle customer support emails that come through our system. The goal is to have it pull information from our company knowledge base which consists of Google Docs stored in specific Drive folders that function as our internal documentation system.
The issue I’m running into is that the Agent appears to only scan document titles and filenames rather than accessing the actual content within the files. When it tries to respond to queries, it includes references with links that don’t work properly instead of extracting relevant text from the documents themselves.
Is this a current limitation of the Agent functionality, or could there be a configuration issue on my end that’s preventing proper document content access?
Yeah, I’ve hit this same frustrating wall. Zapier agents can’t parse Google Docs natively - it’s just not built in. Here’s what saved me: set up a Google Drive trigger for ‘new file in folder’ that auto-converts your docs to PDF or TXT whenever they update. Then point your agent at those converted files instead of the originals. It’s a workaround, but it works.
Indeed, this behavior is common with Zapier Agents when dealing with Google Drive. The Agent cannot directly read the content of Google Docs; it requires intermediary steps or triggers. I managed to overcome this by setting up an automation that converts Google Docs into plain text or HTML beforehand and saves that processed content in a location accessible to the Agent. Alternatively, using Google Apps Script can help extract the content, sending it to a more compatible format, like a database or simple text files. The linking problems arise as the Agent attempts to refer to the Google Docs directly, which it cannot interpret effectively.
I’ve hit this exact issue before. Your Zapier Agent can see the files but can’t actually read what’s inside them - it’s a permissions problem. You need to update your Google Drive connection to include drive.readonly or the full drive scope. Right now you’re probably just using drive.metadata.readonly, which only lets it see file names and basic info. Also double-check that your service account or OAuth setup has read access to the folders where your knowledge base docs live. Even when the Agent finds the files, it can’t pull content without those broader permissions. Try re-authenticating your Google Drive connection with the right scopes - that should fix it.