Google Workspace Updates - (fka) G Suite
Get official updates from the Google Workspace team about feature additions and enhancements for Google Workspace services like Google Meet, Google Chat, and Google Calendar.
4 New updates
Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.
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Previous announcements
Completed rollouts
The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.
- The next phase of digital whiteboarding for Google Workspace (All items mentioned under Jamboard device and item one mentioned under Jamboard app)
- Business Starter customers will soon have access to shared drives (Shared drives enabled by default)
- Improving the Google Workspace Marketplace app publishing experience with Drafts
- Create announcement spaces using the Google Chat API
- Customize your Google Docs with polished cover images
- Refreshed illustrations in the Google Calendar app on Android and iOS devices
- New “Gemini Advanced” branding for Gemini for Google Workspace add-ons
What’s changing
Who’s impacted
Why it matters
Getting started
- Admins: To access Gmail Q&A on Android, users need to have smart features and personalization turned on. Admins can turn on default personalization setting for their users in the Admin console.
- End users:
- Open Gemini in the Gmail app via the black Gemini star at the top right of your app or from a “summarize this email” chip. To start, Gmail Q&A can find information from your inbox. In the future, it will be able to find information from your Drive as well
- Note: Gmail Q&A is currently available in English only.
- Visit the Help Center to learn more about Gemini in Gmail.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 3, 2024
Availability
- Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium
- Google One AI Premium
Resources
What’s changing
Additional details
Getting started
- Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
- End users: To turn watermarking, go to Host controls > Add a watermark. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to apply watermarks to your meeting.
Rollout pace
- Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 3, 2024
Availability
- Gemini Enterprise
- Gemini Education Premium
- AI Security
- AI Meetings & Messaging
Resources
What’s changing
Who’s impacted
Why it matters
Additional details
Getting started
- Admins:
- Data loss prevention in Gmail is available in open beta for select Google Workspace customers. These rules can be configured at the domain, OU, or group level. DLP rules can be enabled in Gmail in the Admin console under Security > Access and data control > Data protection. Note that with the new synchronous scanning, your end users will begin seeing dialog boxes related to these rules before messages leave the inbox. These will be displayed when using Gmail on the web and mobile.
- Visit the Help Center to learn more about controlling sensitive data shared in Gmail. Note that you can modify existing DLP rules for Drive and Chat to also apply to Gmail.
- DLP events can be reviewed in the Security Investigation Tool or Security > Alert Center, if alerts are configured in rules.
- We recommend selecting “Audit only” when you’re setting up a new rule in order to test and monitor its performance, or to passively monitor the environment without interrupting email flow for your users. There are no changes to the “Audit only” action with this update, they will continue to operate as usual.
- End users: Depending on the data loss prevention rules configured by your admin, you may see a dialog letting you know that:
- Your message is blocked: Your message contains information that cannot be shared — you’ll need to remove it in order to send your message.
- Your message contains sensitive information: Your message contains information that is sensitive, but can be shared — you can decide whether to send it or edit the message to exclude this information. Note that your admin will be notified about this activity.
- Your message contains sensitive information that requires review: Your message contains information that will need to be reviewed by an admin. You’ll have the option to submit it for review, and upon review it will be released for delivery or declined. You may receive a notification about the message being declined from delivery.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 7, 2024
Availability
- Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus
- Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade
- Frontline Standard
- Cloud Identity Premium customers
Resources
What’s changing
We’re pleased to announce that the use of comments and action items are now available in client-side encrypted Google Sheets and Slides. This includes the ability to add, edit, reply, filter, or delete comments, as well as assign action items to yourself or others. This is already available for client-side encrypted Google Docs. Expanding this functionality to Sheets and Slides makes it easier to collaborate across encrypted documents.
Additional details
Getting started
- Admins: Client-side encryption can be enabled at the domain, OU, and Group levels (Admin console > Security > Access and data control > Client-side encryption). Visit our Help Center to learn more about client-side encryption.
- End users: If client-side encryption is enabled by your admin, use our Help Center to learn more about working with encrypted files in Drive, Docs, Sheets & Slides.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 2, 2024
- Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 12, 2024
Availability
- Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Standard and Education Plus customers
Resources
3 New updates
Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.
Previous announcements
Completed rollouts
The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.
- Additional data protection in Gemini (gemini.google.com) when using a school account is now available (Admin control)
- Access and sort shared files more easily in Google Chat conversations (Android)
- New advancements in Connected Sheets for Looker
- Additional iOS data exfiltration enhancement: account level data sharing between Google Workspace apps and non-Google Workspace apps on or off
- Introducing Dual Screen on Meet
- Kickstart ideas, brainstorm activities, and differentiate content with the help of Gemini in Google Classroom
What’s changing
Who’s impacted
Why it’s important
Getting started
- Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
- End users: Make sure “Smart features and personalization” is enabled in Gmail to access this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about smart features & controls and contextual Smart Reply in Gmail.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 26, 2024
Availability
- Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium
- Google One AI Premium
Resources
What’s changing
- Conditional notification rules can now be directly applied to tables and will recognize table column names.
- All tables now come with a new, easy entry point to conditional notifications in the controls header.
- Common conditional notifications will now be built-in to pre-built tables by default and can be enabled with a single click.
Getting started
- Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
- End users:
- If you own or have edit-access to a Sheet, you can add or view conditional notifications on your table by clicking on the lightning bolt icon on the table header. From here, you can view and choose to enable, disable, delete, or edit any existing rules.
- Up to 10 rules can be added to a spreadsheet.
- The rules are assigned default names automatically. However, you can update the name of the rule by utilizing the text editor.
- Please note: we group notifications for a better experience and they may take up to 30 minutes to send.
- Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to use conditional notifications and tables in Sheets.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 25, 2024
- Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 16, 2024
Availability
- Business Standard, Plus
- Enterprise Starter, Standard, Plus
- Education Plus
- Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus
Resources
What’s changing
Who’s impacted
Why it’s important
Getting started
- Admins:
- Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting up BIMI.
- To learn more about BIMI and see the latest news, visit the working group’s website.
- To take advantage of BIMI for your outgoing emails to Gmail and other platforms, ensure that your organization has adopted DMARC, and that you have validated your logo with a VMC, issued by a Certification Authority.
- End users: Users will see verified brand logos, and sometimes a checkmark icon, for senders who have adopted BIMI.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 24, 2024
Availability
- Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts
Resources
What’s changing
Who’s impacted
Why you’d use it
Getting started
- Admins: The “Feature preview” setting is configured to “General availability” by default. When “Early preview” is selected, devices will receive new features when they are released to the “preview” stage. Visit the Help Center to learn more about trying features early on your devices. We recommend that 10% or less of your fleet adopts “Early preview” to try new experiences in conference rooms before they roll out to General availability.
- End users: Depending on your organization’s configuration, you may be able to preview new features on select Google Meet hardware devices.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 30, 2024
Availability
- Available to all Google Workspace customers with Google Meet hardware devices
Resources
What’s changing
- Click the new “Cover image” chip at the top of your Doc (similar to the ones introduced last year).
- Go to Insert > Cover image > Upload from computer or Choose from stock images.
- Type “@” followed by Cover image > Upload from computer or Choose from stock images.
Additional details
Getting started
- Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
- End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about adding a cover image to your document.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 24, 2024
Availability
- Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts
Resources
What’s changing
The cyber threat landscape is evolving and there's been an increase in the sophistication and volume of malicious threats. Small businesses frequently lack the time, resources, and expertise that larger organizations have to implement robust security measures. As a result, threat actors often perceive these organizations as easier targets.
To help small businesses, we’re introducing security advisor, a set of new insights and tools designed to enhance security for small businesses – including threat defense, account security, and data protection capabilities. Security advisor offers tailored security insights, actionable guidance in the admin console, and simplified data protection controls — all to help businesses keep their customer data safe.
With security advisor, applying security settings is easier than before and the recommended settings can be easily adopted and customized to meet the specific needs of each organization in just a few steps. This helps organizations elevate their security posture, helps their IT team be more efficient by simplifying admin work, and helps reduce the risk of misconfigured security settings with a guided, in-app experience in the Admin console.
In addition to security insights in the Admin console, the security advisor feature set includes the following:
- Chrome Enhanced Safe Browsing
- Gmail Enhanced Safe Browsing
- Gmail Security Sandbox
- Data protection
- App access protection
Getting started
- Admins: In the Admin console, navigate to Security > Security advisor. Visit the Help Center to learn more about security advisor and turning on recommended settings.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 24, 2024
Availability
- Available for Google Workspace Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
Resources
What’s changing
- Outline a lesson plan: Use a scaffolded experience to generate lesson plan ideas based on what you’d like students to be able to demonstrate
- Craft a compelling hook: Spark curiosity and engage your students with a compelling start for your class
- Generate a quiz: Generate a quiz and export to Forms based on target grade level, length, and the types of questions you want to include
- Re-level text: Generate a new version of your text based on target grade level
Who’s impacted
Why it’s important
Additional details
Getting started
- Admins: Learn more about available pricing and discounts for the Gemini Education add-ons or contact your existing Google Workspace for Education reseller or a Google for Education sales specialist.
- Note that Education customers who have already purchased Gemini Enterprise will have the choice to transition to either Gemini Education or Gemini Education Premium.
- End users:
- If your admin has assigned you a Gemini Education license, navigate to the Gemini Education tab in the navigation bar in Google Classroom.
- When using generated content, you should always review the outputs as AI can make mistakes and refine the output so that it fits your context and local policies before assigning to students.
- Visit the Help Center to learn more about Gemini in Classroom and feel free to take this course to learn more about generative AI for Educators.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 23, 2024
Availability
- Gemini Education and Education Premium
Resources
- Google Workspace Admin Help: Gemini for Google Workspace add-ons
- The Keyword: Bringing Gemini to Google Workspace for Education
- Google Workspace Updates Blog: Introducing Gemini offerings for Google Workspace for Education customers
- AI Track of the Google for Education Pilot Program Interest Form
- Google Help: Gemini in Classroom
3 New updates
Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.
- To import the table range, including header cells, you would input: =IMPORTRANGE(spreadsheet_url, “Table1[#ALL]”)
- To import the table range, excluding header cells, you would input: =IMPORTRANGE(spreadsheet_url, “Table1[#DATA]”)
- Cmd+Opt+T for Mac
- Ctrl+Alt+T for Linux and Windows
Previous announcements
Completed rollouts
The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.
- Providing student engagement signals for Google Drive file attachments in Google Classroom
- Co-annotate from select Google Meet hardware devices
- The TeamViewer Meet Add-on is now available
- NotebookLM now available as an Additional Service
- Admin features for space management via the Chat API are now generally available
What’s changing
Getting started
- Admins: Blocking sending of work data to personal apps, including all non-Google Workspace apps on the iOS share sheet, will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the OU level. These settings can be configured in the Admin console under Devices > Mobile and endpoints > iOS settings > Data Sharing. Visit the Help Center to learn more about data protection on iOS devices. Use this article in our Help Center to learn more about how to set up the managed configuration, go to set up iOS apps with managed configurations.
- End users: Sharing of data between Google Workspace apps and non-Google Workspace apps depends on your admin configuration. If you’re unable to share data between apps, you may see a warning message. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how your iOS device is managed.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on September 19, 2024
Availability
- Enterprise Standard and Plus
- Education Standard and Plus
- Enterprise Essentials Plus
- Frontline Standard
- Cloud Identity Premium
Resources
What’s changing
Who’s impacted
Additional details
Getting started
- Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
- End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing birthdays on your calendar.
- Developers: Use our developer guide about working with the birthday event type.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 19, 2024
- Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 9, 2024
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 24, 2024
Availability
- Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.
Resources
What’s changing
Earlier this year, we introduced a series of space management capabilities for Workspace admins in the Google Chat API via the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program. These API features are now generally available for all Google Workspace customers and developers.
Using these features, admins can easily perform a variety of space management related tasks at scale. This includes membership management, like adding and removing members, onboarding and offboarding users from spaces, cleaning up inactive spaces, and more.
These features are also available when using the Google Apps Manager (GAM), an open source command-line tool that helps administrators to perform bulk operations associated with various aspects of their Google Workspace. The tool can be used to automate space management tasks with command-line scripts, helping to reduce admin overhead and potential errors when using APIs. See this article in our Help Center for more information on using a third-party tool for mass provisioning.
Who’s impacted
Admins and developers
Why you’d use it
- Find and delete inactive spaces: Using spaces.search, you can find spaces that haven’t been used since a specified date and time and then delete them.
- Onboard and offboard users: Automatically add new users to relevant spaces and remove them from spaces when they leave or change roles.
- Audit external members: Monitor and control access to your organization's data by identifying and removing external members from sensitive conversations.
- Lookup and update space details: Easily manage space information like names, descriptions, and guidelines.
- Verify user membership and upgrade roles: Manage user access and roles within spaces.
- And more — please refer to our developer guidance for even more information.
Getting started
- Admins and developers: Use our Developer Documentation to learn how to authenticate and authorize using administrator privilege, managing Google Chat spaces as a Workspace admin, and searching for and managing Google Chat spaces for your Google Workspace organization.
- End users: There is no end user impact or action required.
Rollout pace
- Available now
Availability
- Available for all Google Workspace customers
Resources
- Developer Documentation: Authenticate and authorize using administrator privileges
- Developer Documentation: Search for and manage Google Chat spaces for your Google Workspace organization
- Developer Documentation: Authenticate and authorize Chat apps and Google Chat API requests
- Google Workspace Admin Help: Manage spaces in the Google Admin console
- Google Workspace Updates Blog: Manage spaces at scale with new Chat API functionality
- Google Workspace Updates Blog: Additional admin space management capabilities in Google Chat API are now available in Developer Preview Program
- Google Chat Developer Release Notes
What’s changing
- Be an interactive expert in your trusted sources: Once you upload source documents (e.g. Google Doc and Slides, PDFs, web URLs, copied text) into a notebook, you can ask NotebookLM questions about the information in your sources. As a result, it will respond with an answer from the sources you’ve uploaded along with inline citations from those documents to show you what NotebookLM based its answers on.
- Generate new ideas and connect dots: NotebookLM can also be used to generate a variety of content based on your sources, like summaries, briefing docs, timelines, FAQs, study guides or even audio overviews (a new feature that lets you listen to a conversation about your source). NotebookLM can also spark creativity, help you brainstorm new ideas and make connections in your sources. You can save a response to a note, so you can come back to polish it later.
Who’s impacted
Why you’d use it
Additional details
Getting started
- Admins: Customers who had access to NotebookLM as an Early Access App can continue to use it. For all others, admins must turn on Notebook LM as an Additional Service if new services are not set to turn on automatically for end users. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning on or off additional Google services.
- End users: Once NotebookLM is enabled by your admin, go to NotebookLM.google.com to start using it. Visit the Help Center to learn more about NotebookLM.
Rollout pace
- Available now
Availability
- Available to all Google Workspace customers
Resources
What’s changing
- Enhanced accessibility features, such as the ability to use an embedded calendar with a screen reader and keyboard shortcuts to navigate more easily.
- Improved spacing to make text easier to read.
- A responsive layout that adapts to different screen sizes seamlessly.
Getting started
- Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
- End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about adding a Google calendar to your website.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 17, 2024
- Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 7, 2024
Availability
- Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts
Resources
What’s changing
Who’s impacted
Why it’s important
Additional details
- Shared drive managers can always access folders with limited-access
- Folder owners can always access limited-access folders in their My Drive
Getting started
- Admins: Eligible customers can express interest in the beta here. We’ll begin accepting domains into the program in the coming weeks. Once accepted into the beta, visit the Help Center to learn more about folders with limited access.
- End users:
- As a shared drive manager or My Drive folder owner, go to your shared drive > choose the folder you want to limit access > click the overflow menu > share > select share settings in the top right corner > click limited access to “Folder Name”. Visit the Help Center to learn more about folders with limited access.
- For users whose access has been limited, you will see the folder name, but the folder will be grayed out:
Availability
- Business Standard, Plus
- Enterprise Standard, Plus
- Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus
- Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, the Teaching & Learning Upgrade
- Nonprofits
Resources
What’s changing
Who’s impacted
Why it matters
Getting started
- Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
- End users: You can enable this feature by using “Presentation display options”. Visit the Help Center to learn more about presenting slides with other monitors.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 16, 2024
- Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 14, 2024
Availability
- Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts
Resources
3 New updates
Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.
Previous announcements
Completed rollouts
The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.
- Enhancing your productivity on Android devices with new features in Gmail and Google Chat apps
- “Take notes for me” in Google Meet is now available
- Gemini (gemini.google.com) now shows related content links in its responses
- Improved user experience for Google Meet on Android devices
- Gemini reports now include user-level usage, including app usage insights
- Google Cloud Directory Sync now complies with your conflicting accounts management settings
- Google Meet Add-ons SDK is now generally available
For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).
What’s changing
Who’s impacted
Why you’d use it
Additional details
Getting started
- Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about Google Workspace Marketplace and getting started as a Marketplace app admin.
- Developers: Visit the developer resources to update your app listing with drafts, learn how to develop apps and add-ons for Google Workspace, and how to make your apps and add-ons available in the Marketplace.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 12, 2024
Availability
- Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts
Resources
What’s changing
Who’s impacted
Why it matters
- The main stage allows apps to be the focal point of a meeting experience, unlocking the opportunity for add-on users to supercharge collaboration while in a meeting.
- The side panel allows users to do actions such as share data, take surveys, or update records and notes while keeping the meeting and the discussion with other participants the focal point of this experience.
Additional details
Getting started
- Admins: The availability of Google Meet Add-ons in meetings can be controlled through the Google Meet Admin Controls. Visit the Help Center to learn more about admin controls for Add-ons.
- Developers: Our Developer Documentation has more information about using the Meet Add-Ons SDK.
- End users:
- Visit the Help Center to learn more about using add-ons with Google Meet.
- Meeting hosts can control the availability of add-ons during meetings by going to Host Controls (lock icon) > Meeting Activities > Let contributors share add-on activities. Refer to this announcement on the Workspace Updates blog for more information.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Available now.
Availability
- Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts
Resources
What’s changing
Getting started
- Admins: Google Cloud Directory Sync will automatically respect your existing Admin console settings for handling conflicting unmanaged accounts. We do not recommend turning this feature off in GCDS, rather you should configure these settings as you see fit in the Admin console. Visit the Help Center to learn more about handling conflicting unmanaged accounts with Google Cloud Directory Sync, as well as unmanaged accounts in general.
- End users: Depending on your admin configuration:
- You’ll be invited to transfer your account — if accepted, your admin will have the ability to manage your account.
- If you do not accept the request, your admin may replace your unmanaged account with a managed one. In that case, you’ll receive a new @gmail.com address and retain your content in this unmanaged, personal Google account.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Available now.
Availability
- Available for all Google Workspace customers