We need to access some Google service to get the Quick Access data for this feature. We are still investigating different approaches. So far, we have the following options.
1. Work with QuickAccess team to get the recent accessed google drive items including all Google docs, spreadsheets, slides, as well as the third party items on Google Drive. 

Here is the team website:
http://go/ItemSuggest
Demo url: https://itemsuggest.corp.google.com/debug/suggestitems/quickaccess
ItemSuggest Proto: https://cs.corp.google.com/piper///depot/google3/java/com/google/apps/search/quality/itemsuggest/boq/protos/item_suggest.proto?l=24
The thumbnail data is not included in the response. It looks like they have One Platform API to serve the external client. https://g3doc.corp.google.com/company/teams/apps-item-suggest/calling-itemsuggest.md?cl=head#oneplatform

To access their service, we may need to create a new client id and go through PWG process. See the following instruction about how to become a new client of QuickAccess.
go/itemsuggest-clients

I am following up with Sean Abraham to see if they already have One Platform to serve external client.

One hurdle for accessing their service is that Chrome seems does not have the gRPC client library to call One Platform API. 

2. ChromeWorks has built their own front end server to to access the similar data we are accessing from QuickAccess for their chrome extension.They have already passed the process to become a client for QuickAccess. It may be possible for them to serve our requests. Tracie Chan is their dev lead. However, they don't have the thumbnail image data either. Plus, we may diverge in the feature development later. Depending on their server may or may not become a problem in the future.

3. To get the thumbnail image data of the drive item, I talked to scott pledger, the dev who built the web UI for Gdrive. They get the item id from QucikAccess API and then called FIFE service with the item id to get the thumbnail url back, then retrieve the image data with the url. There are many corner cases for them to handle in real life. We can learn from high level logic but looks like we can't use their service or code to serve our purpose. 

4. As Megha talked to me today, Sydney team who build File app in chromeOS may have the their own front end server to serve both quick access data and thumbnail data. We are investigating if they have the data we need, and if it is possible for us to integrate with their service or code to get the data we need.

We are still talking to different teams to decide which path we will head to. 

This issue has an owner, a component and a priority, but is still listed as untriaged or unconfirmed. By definition, this bug is triaged. Changing status to "assigned". Please reach out to me if you disagree with how I've done this.

This is not part of the initial zero state feature anymore.