We are introducing next steps in Google Meet. Powered by Gemini and Workspace Studio, our new capability allows users to automate repetitive post-meeting tasks directly within Google Workspace. Next steps help you transform meeting discussions into definitive actions, like drafting follow-up emails in Gmail or exporting action items to Google Tasks.

During busy work days, meetings are frequently just one part of an expanding workflow. Without the right integrations, capturing decisions and executing on follow-up tasks requires manual data entry that leads to context fragmentation and wasted time.

On your post-meeting screen, look for the section titled, “Routines for this meeting,”  where you can enable next steps with one tap. “Take notes for me” must be enabled during the meeting for any next steps to appear. This works for both one-off or recurring meetings, and users can enable a specific next step across all of their meetings (when “Take notes for me” is turned on).

We are starting out with just two routine next steps, draft a follow-up email and add action items to Google Tasks. However, there are several more soon on the way, so be on the lookout!

Draft a followup email or export your action items to Google Tasks on the Google Meet post-call page after a one-off meeting

You can also complete your next steps after a recurring meeting

Getting started

• Admins: This feature will be ON by default and can be disabled at the domain/OU/group level via the Workspace Studio Admin settings or the Take Notes for Me setting. Visit the Help Center to learn more.
• End users: This feature is available to users when "Take notes for me" is enabled. Users can manage their routine next steps from the Meet post-call screen or in the Workspace Studio Flows library once turned on for the first time in Google Meet. Visit the Help Center to learn more.

Rollout pace

• Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) started on October 5, 2026

Availability

• Business: Business Standard and Plus
• Enterprise: Enterprise Standard and Plus
• Education Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education

Resources

• Google Help: Complete routine tasks with post-meeting next steps

We’re introducing Assured Controls rules in the Google Workspace Admin Console, giving administrators a more granular, resource-centric way to enforce Access Management and Access Approvals policies on Google Drive files.

Previously, Access Management and Access Approvals policies could only be scoped at the user level, applying broadly to all covered data owned by users within a selected Organizational Unit (OU) or group. With Assured Controls rules, admins can now configure both Access Management and Access Approvals policies together in a single unified rule and target specific Google Drive files using classification labels in addition to existing OU and group-based scoping capabilities.

By scoping Assured Controls policies to specific classification labels, organizations can reserve their strictest sovereign and compliance controls for only their most sensitive files while maintaining standard, rapid support workflows for less sensitive business data.

How organizations can use Assured Controls rules:

• Automated end-to-end protection with Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Admins can combine data protection rules with Assured Controls rules to automatically apply Access Approvals and Access Management policies based on Drive file contents. A DLP rule can automatically apply a classification label when sensitive content (such as Personally Identifiable Information, financial records, or regulated project identifiers) is detected in a Drive file, which then automatically triggers the corresponding Assured Controls rule using that label as a condition to enforce Access Management and Access Approvals protections.
• Regional data sovereignty across multinational teams: Multinational enterprises can apply regional classification labels (such as EU Restricted or U.S. Restricted) to Drive files and restrict access to EU or US support staff based on the contents of the file itself.
• Targeted compliance for regulated workloads: Public sector and financial services organizations can apply a classification label (such as CJIS / IRS 1075) to sensitive Drive files and use an Assured Controls rule to restrict support actions on those files to CJIS-authorized and IRS 1075-authorized individuals while simultaneously requiring explicit Access Approvals—without impacting support speed for unclassified files owned by the same users.

Getting started

• Admins: Use our Help Center to learn more about Assured Controls rules for Access Management & Access Approvals.
• End users: There is no end user setting for this feature.

Rollout pace

• Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) started on September 30, 2026

Availability

• Access Approvals rule-based enforcement: Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus and Frontline Plus customers with the Assured Controls or Assured Controls Plus add-on.
• Access Management rule-based enforcement: Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus and Frontline Plus customers with the Assured Controls Plus add on.

Resources

• Google Workspace Admin Help: Assured Controls rules for Access Management & Access Approvals 
• Google Workspace Admin Help: Access Management: Limit the Google staff who can take support actions related to your data
• Google Workspace Admin Help: Access Approvals: Require Google staff to request approval before viewing support data
• Google Workspace Admin Help: About Assured Controls and Assured Controls Plus
• Google Workspace Admin Help: What data is covered by Access Management and Access Approvals? 
• Google Workspace Admin Help: Create data protection rules
• Google Workspace Admin Help: Create classification labels for your organization

Calls in Google Meet will use post-quantum cryptography (PQC) for extra protection, starting now with laptop web clients and meeting room hardware, with mobile support coming soon. There are no visible changes, and you can continue using Meet normally. The updated encryption protects your data against potential future quantum computer threats.

The expansion of PQC to all Meet calls will help to secure infrastructure and services against the potential threat of a future cryptographically relevant quantum computer. No such computer exists today; however this change helps protect today's Meet traffic from the theoretical risk of being harvested and decrypted by a future quantum computer, an approach commonly referred to as Store Now, Decrypt Later.

Google Meet has used quantum-safe encryption previously for client-side encrypted calls (CSE).

Google automatically implements all necessary updates to benefit all Meet hosts and participants. Administrators and end users don't need to take any action.

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 call & meeting encryption in Google Meet.

Rollout pace

• Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on Oct 12 for web and room hardware

Availability

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

Resources

• Cloud Blog: PQC in Plaintext: Google Cloud’s post-quantum cryptography roadmap
• Google Blog: Setting a timeline for post-quantum cryptography migration
• Google Help: Learn about Meet client-side encryption (CSE)
• Google Admin Help: How Google protects your organization's security and privacy
• Google Workspace: Advanced Security & Threat Prevention
• Google Cloud: Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) hub

Secondary calendars will now follow the lifecycle of their owner

As announced earlier this year, we are now rolling out the secondary calendar lifecycle changes for non-personal Workspace accounts: secondary calendars will now follow the lifecycle of their owner, meaning that when a user account is deleted, any secondary calendars owned by that user will be deleted as well. | Learn more.

Preview, edit and collaborate on Markdown (.md) files natively across Drive and Docs

We are introducing the ability to view, edit, and collaborate on Markdown (.md or .markdown) files directly in Google Docs, as well as view rendered previews in Google Drive. | Learn more.

Use stock charts in Sheets to better visualize price movements

Google Sheets now supports new types of stock charts, making it easier to visualize price movement over time. Stock charts condense several price points for each time period into a single marker, so you can read a security's full trading range at a glance rather than interpreting separate line series. | Learn more.

Create Trello cards from Google Chat messages with Trello for Google Workspace

Trello for Google Workspace makes it easy to capture tasks and ideas from the conversations where they begin. With the app, you can create new Trello cards from emails and Google Chat messages, helping you keep Trello up to date without switching tabs or breaking your flow. | Learn more.

Point-in-time editing now available in Google Vids

Google Vids is improving the video creation experience with the introduction of point-in-time editing. This feature will help ensure that the canvas matches the video timeline 1:1. Previously, the canvas displayed all elements present across an entire scene all at the same time, regardless of when they appeared during the video. | Learn more.

Carrier Link for Google Voice available in 14 additional countries

In June, we launched Carrier Link in 20 countries where Google Voice service was not otherwise available. Today, we are making Carrier Link available in an additional 14 countries (the US, Canada, and much of Europe).  Previously, customers in these countries could purchase Google Voice with a first party calling plan provided by Google. Now, customers who want the simplicity and features of Google Voice, but would prefer to use it in combination with a calling plan purchased from a local carrier can do so. | Learn more.

New logic and search steps in Workspace Studio help expand automation capabilities

We are introducing several new feature enhancements to Google Workspace Studio as part of the October 2026 feature release. These additions expand automation capabilities across Gmail, Google Meet, Google Drive, and custom control logic, giving users more flexibility to build sophisticated workflows without writing code. | 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.

We are introducing several new feature enhancements to Google Workspace Studio as part of the October 2026 feature release. These additions expand automation capabilities across Gmail, Google Meet, Google Drive, and custom control logic, giving users more flexibility to build sophisticated workflows without writing code.

Specifically, this release includes:

• Nested Conditionals: Enables nested branching logic within flows so users can build multi-layered conditional decision paths.

• Gmail Skip Replies: Allows users to configure Gmail thread triggers to ignore follow-up replies, ensuring flows trigger only on primary incoming emails.

• Meet Calendar Outputs: Expands the Google Meet primitive to output additional Calendar event metadata—including full invitee lists—and provides template support for generating post-meeting follow-up email drafts.
• Search for a Doc: Introduces a dedicated Google Drive step that allows flows to search dynamically for relevant document files based on search parameters.

These enhancements eliminate repetitive follow-up tasks, allow dynamic document lookup, and provide more control over automated communication across Google Workspace.

Getting started

• Admins: Feature controls inherit overall Workspace Studio domain and OU-level policies. Admin settings for prerequisite primitives ramped prior to feature deployment. Visit the Help Center to learn more.
• End users: Features are ON by default and accessible directly within the Workspace Studio flow builder. Visit the Help Center to learn more.

Rollout pace

• Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 13, 2026

Availability

• Available to all Google Workspace customers and Workspace Individual subscribers with access to Google Workspace Studio.

Resources

• Google Help: Guide to Starters & Steps in Workspace Studio