Introducing guest accounts: Collaborate securely and communicate with non-Workspace users in Google Chat

Today, we're excited to announce the general availability of guest accounts in Google Workspace. Guest accounts empower organizations to securely collaborate with customers, partners, and vendors that are not on Google Workspace. More than secure, real-time messaging in Google Chat, guest accounts enable organizations to extend their security and data protection policies to these non-Workspace users. Whether it’s collaborating on a marketing brief in Google Docs or a presentation in Google Slides, non-Workspace users with guest accounts adhere to your organization’s security policies.

When an end user in your organization invites an external, non-Workspace user in Google Chat through a direct message (DM) or Chat Space, a guest account is provisioned for that external user within your Workspace domain with a unique account identifier. These guest accounts are also automatically placed in a dedicated "Workspace Guests" Organizational Unit (OU) in the Admin console, with default security policies designed for these external users.

When communicating with guest accounts in DMs or Chat Spaces, your organization’s end users will see a teal “external” label for guest accounts. This is similar to the yellow “external” label that we have utilized in Google Chat to indicate external Workspace users. Guests can be @mentioned across supported Workspace app surfaces, similar to any other user. This means that end users can invite guests via Chat and collaborate with them using Chat, Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Meet.

Workspace admins have full visibility and control. The guest accounts capability is tied to your existing external chat settings. If you have external chatting enabled, end users in your organization can now start inviting non-Workspace users in Chat to collaborate with you.

Your organization retains full ownership of data created and shared within your Workspace domain when collaborating with users using guest accounts. Moreover, external users with guest accounts cannot create or own new files in Google Drive; they can only be invited to collaborate on existing files.

To learn more about the full set of capabilities for guest accounts and features available to host organization’s administrators to manage these guest accounts, take a look at the detailed documentation.