This official feed from the Google Workspace team provides essential information about new features and improvements for Google Workspace customers.
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We’re excited to launch Sheets canvas, a new Gemini-powered capability that transforms your spreadsheets into custom, interactive, read-write applications using simple natural language prompts. It acts as a dynamic visualization layered directly on top of your spreadsheet data, allowing you and your team to work in layouts that best fit your workflows. 

Whether you need to coordinate cross-functional deliverables or present core insights from dense data to an executive team, Sheets canvas can deliver the visual tool for the job. Key capabilities include: 

  • End-to-end creation: Build an advanced visualization with a single natural language prompt without requiring coding, formulas, or third-party tools. 
  • Fully read-write: Changes made in the canvas, such as dragging task cards or adding new entries, instantly update your source sheet. Likewise, any updates to the source sheet reflect in your canvas in real time. 
  • Flexible adjustments: Continue to polish and refine your Sheets canvas by prompting Gemini to make edits to layout, design, functionality, and more. 
  • Familiar sharing tools: Because Sheets canvas is built directly inside Google Sheets, it inherits the same sharing settings as your spreadsheet, making it effortless to collaborate in real time. 
For example, if you’re a financial analyst working out of a budget spreadsheet, you can ask Gemini to “Build an interactive dashboard that helps me analyze how different cost drivers impact a quarterly budget.” If you’re an operations lead overseeing logistics, you can simply prompt Gemini to “Create a custom tracker to visualize regional field assignments.” 

Users can build a wide variety of applications with Sheets canvas. Here are just a few examples:


Kanban board: Group tasks by workflow stage, and drag and drop cards to update progress in real time 


Dashboard: Create a financial forecasting model with dynamic scenario planning


Whiteboard: Conduct a virtual brainstorming session with sticky notes 

Note: This feature is currently only available on the web to accounts with language set to English.

Getting started 

Rollout pace 

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 10, 2026 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 31, 2026 

Availability 

  • Business: Business Standard and Plus 
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Standard and Plus 
  • Consumer: Google AI Pro and Ultra Education 
  • Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education AI Add-ons: AI Expanded Access 
Note: Creating and editing Sheets canvases is subject to per-user usage limits. See the Help Center for more information. 

Resources 


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Google Workspace is introducing two usability enhancements to Connected Sheets to improve data presentation and give more flexibility when analyzing BigQuery data. 

List parameters: When writing a query, users can reference multiple values in a single list parameter by selecting a grid range in a sheet. Each cell will function as a unique value in the list. This enables more flexible or robust querying based on values already in the sheet. For example, this feature allows data admins and power users to configure input sheets that allow collaborators or end users to easily select options via drop-down or in the sheet for advanced filtering without needing to modify the underlying query. As a result, more users can independently self-serve insights and interact with Connected Sheets. 

Column aliasing: Users can create aliases for BigQuery column names directly within the Connected Sheet. Database column names can sometimes be unwieldy or lack contextual information for broader audience readability. Aliasing provides a way to substitute presentation-ready labels in the Connected Sheets interface without altering the underlying database reference. Users can continue to refer to columns by either the new alias or the original name in formulas and inputs. 





Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

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

Resources 

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We’re introducing two key improvements in Google Sheets that preserve formatting and linked data when converting files from Microsoft Excel. First, Excel tables will now seamlessly import as Sheets tables. Second, Sheets now fully supports importing Excel pivot tables that are backed by table ranges.

Previously, when converting Excel files, Excel tables did not import as Sheets tables, causing users to miss out on the structural and formatting benefits of tables, and pivot tables linked to tables were replaced with static grids. These updates ensure your data structures remain intact and beautifully formatted upon import. Most importantly, your imported spreadsheets will be ready to use right away, no manual reconstruction needed.



Table with linked pivot table imported into Google Sheets

Getting started

Rollout pace

Table imports

Linked pivot table imports

Availability

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

Resources

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Provide more clear, contextual feedback with timestamped comments in Google Drive videos

We are introducing timestamped comments for videos in Google Drive on the web. Users can now anchor comments to a specific time mark in a video, making video collaboration more direct, precise, and contextual. | Learn more.

Visual screenshots now included in Google Meet meeting notes

We’re improving the ‘Take notes for me’ feature in Google Meet by giving you the ability to automatically capture and include screenshots of presented content directly in the meeting notes document. | Learn more.

Gemini in Google Classroom is expanding to users of all ages, with contextualized Gemini starter prompts for students

Last year, we launched Gemini in Google Classroom to help educators save time on planning and create more engaging lessons, and later expanded Gemini in Classroom to higher education students 18 years of age and older to help them study and learn. Starting August 10, 2026, Gemini in Classroom will also be made available to K-12 and higher education students of all ages who have already been granted access to Gemini in Classroom, Gemini and Gemini Notebook by their admin, offering a guided space to interact with these tools.  | Learn more.

Streamlining rubric generation in Google Classroom with Gemini

To make it easier to create rubrics and grade in Google Classroom, educators can now instantly generate a new Classroom-ready rubric during their assignment creation workflow, using context from their assignment.  | Learn more.

Automatically add sources to your Gemini Notebooks in Workspace Studio

Historically, keeping Gemini Notebooks up to date would require you to manually add sources one by one. Now, this new integration lets you automate adding sources to your Gemini Notebooks as part of a recurring workflow. You can use the new Add a source to Gemini Notebook step to add text, links to Drive files, or generic Youtube or web URLs as sources to your notebooks to ensure your notebooks are always up to date on the latest content. | Learn more.

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

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Historically, keeping Gemini Notebooks up to date would require you to manually add sources one by one. Now, this new integration lets you automate adding sources to your Gemini Notebooks as part of a recurring workflow. You can use the new Add a source to Gemini Notebook step to add text, links to Drive files, or generic Youtube or web URLs as sources to your notebooks to ensure your notebooks are always up to date on the latest content.



Use Add a source to Gemini Notebook to automatically keep your notebooks up to date

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Business: Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Standard and Plus
  • Education: Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus
  • Education Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education; Teaching and Learning
  • Other Add-ons: AI Expanded Access

Resources

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Useful Links

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