This official feed from the Google Workspace team provides essential information about new features and improvements for Google Workspace customers.
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Update (March 30, 2026): This feature is rolling out now to Workspace for Education customers. We expect it to be available to all Education plans listed below within a week.

What’s changing

We’re launching a new integration between Gmail and Google Chat designed to improve team collaboration and productivity. With this feature, you can easily share a conversation from your Gmail inbox to a Chat direct message or space. No need to start your chat conversation with, "Did you see the email I forwarded?" or dig through your inbox to find the message being discussed.

Starting from a Gmail thread, you can initiate a chat with the existing email recipients, a subset, or a new group. The email is automatically forwarded and recipients can open it directly from a link in Chat.

This enables you to switch to Chat for active discussion while preserving the connection to the original message. Two-way linking helps ensure that everyone has the full context they need for a productive discussion and reduces the need to jump between tabs.

This feature is helpful in common scenarios such as:

  • Resolving an issue in real time instead of going back and forth over email
  • Chatting about an email with a subset of the original group before responding
  • Discussing a customer email with coworkers
  • Signal boosting an announcement by company leadership 
  • Sharing meetings notes and action items

Sharing an email in Google Chat
Sharing an email in Google Chat

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. Organizations must have both Gmail and Chat enabled for the feature to appear.
  • End users: This feature will be on by default for users who have Chat enabled in Gmail, available on desktop at launch and on mobile soon (currently available in limited testing on mobile for selected users). Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to share in Chat from Gmail.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Business: Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Education: Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus
  • Other Editions: Frontline Starter, Standard, and Plus; Nonprofits
  • AI Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education

Resources

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What’s changing

We recently introduced the ability for educators to create and assign NotebookLM in Google Classroom. Now, teachers can attach public notebooks to assignments, in addition to the notebooks they create or own.

This update significantly expands the access to educational content available to educators and students. Educators can now easily integrate publicly shared learning materials — including notebooks available from our partnership with OpenStax. 


Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available for Google Workspace Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus

Resources

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What’s changing

We are introducing a new setting in Google Chat that allows space owners and managers to control whether users can request to join a space.

Previously, if someone received a link to a space that required permission for them to join, they could send a request to space owners and managers. With this new feature, space owners and managers can now further restrict access by disabling the "request to join" option. If users try to access a space via a link, they will no longer be able to request to join.

New permissions control in the space settings menu
New permissions control in the space settings menu


‘No access’ message for users without permission
‘No access’ message for users without permission

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: Go to space settings and flip the toggle under “Allow requests to join.” 

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts

Resources


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A summary of announcements from the last week:

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog over the last week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Granular OAuth consent in web apps and Google Workspace add-ons

Earlier this year,  we launched an improved version of the OAuth consent screen to the Apps Script IDE and unpublished web apps and Google Workspace add-ons that allows users to specify which individual scopes they would like to authorize for that script. For example, if a script requests access to a user’s Google Sheets and Forms files, and the user only intends to use the script with Sheets files, they can decide to only allow access to their spreadsheets and not their forms. | Learn more about Granular OAuth consent in web apps and Google Workspace add-ons.

Data classification labels visible in more places across Google Drive

Beginning today, a Drive item’s applied data classification values will appear across all views on Drive on the web, including Home, My Drive, Shared Drives, and Drive search results. Previously, users needed to either navigate to Details or open the file to know a Drive item’s classification state. Now, users will immediately see the applied classification values when navigating throughout the Drive product. | Learn more about the expanded visibility of data classification labels across Google Drive.

Automatically generated captions for videos in Google Drive now available in more languages

We are expanding automatic video captions in Google Drive to support 27 new languages. This update improves accessibility for all users—including those who are hard of hearing or speak different languages—while saving time by eliminating manual caption creation and enhancing video searchability. | Learn more about new language support for automatically generated captions in Google Drive.

Fine-tune your network for Meet live streaming with extended quality metrics

Meet audit events logged for live stream viewers now contain an extended set of quality metrics. These metrics can help admins understand their viewers' perceived quality when participating in live streams. The quality metrics can be used to identify potential network configuration adjustments that can improve the live streaming experience. | Learn more about fine-tuning your network for Meet live streaming with extended quality metrics.

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What’s changing

Meet audit events logged for live stream viewers now contain an extended set of quality metrics. These metrics can help admins understand their viewers' perceived quality when participating in live streams. The quality metrics can be used to identify potential network configuration adjustments that can improve the live streaming experience. 

The audit events contain quality metrics about both direct media delivery from Google's servers and peer-assisted media delivery when eCDN is used. 

Some examples of the new quality metric fields
Some examples of the new quality metric fields  

Getting started

  • Admins: Access audit events for Meet through the Admin SDK.

Rollout pace

  • Available now

Availability

Audit events are logged for live stream viewers of all Google Workspace customers. Hosting live streams is available to organizers with an eligible Workspace license, including:

  • Enterprise Standard and Plus
  • Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Education Plus and Teaching and Learning add-on

Resources

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Useful Links

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