This official feed from the Google Workspace team provides essential information about new features and improvements for Google Workspace customers.
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Last year, we introduced a feature that gives Google Forms creators more control over who can respond to their forms via sharing settings. We are now improving how you can choose to manage responses in Google Forms by enabling you to set a close date or response limit for new responses.

Currently, form creators have to manually stop a form from accepting new responses. With this launch, form owners and editors will be able to set a specific date and time to close the form, or set a certain number of responses that will trigger the form to close automatically.

This feature is designed to streamline the form closure process, offering form creators more control over data collection. It is beneficial for many form types, including registration, event planning, and research forms.

GIF showing how to set a date and time to stop accepting form responses

Determine when you want to stop collecting responses to your form

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers, 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.

Manage Apple Intelligence Writing Tools in Google Workspace iOS apps

Admins can now disable Apple Intelligence Writing Tools within Google Workspace apps. This provides greater data protection and risk mitigation on iOS 18.1+ devices. Simply toggle the setting in the Admin console to hide these external features. Users will no longer see the "Writing Tools" option when selecting text. | Learn more about managing Apple Intelligence Writing Tools in Google Workspace iOS apps.

Now generally available: Migrate files from Dropbox to Google Drive

Admins can use the New Data Migration service to migrate data from Dropbox business accounts, including files, folders and associated permissions, helping organizations transition to Google Workspace quickly and easily. | Learn more about migrating files from Dropbox to Google Drive.

Generate podcast-style audio lessons in Google Classroom using Gemini

Last year, we made Gemini in Classroom available to all Google Workspace for Education editions with features to help educators create content and resources through one central destination in Classroom. Starting today, educators can now generate and share audio lessons to help students engage more deeply with instructional content and support various learning modalities. | Learn more about generating podcast-style audio lessons in Google Classroom using Gemini.

Control Speech Translation in Google Meet for your users

Google Meet Speech Translation allows translation in near-real time, bridging language barriers across users and organizations. The feature is currently available in alpha but will launch more broadly in beta on January 27, 2026. | Learn more about controlling speech translation in Google Meet for your users.

More user control for “Take notes for me” in Google Meet

We’re introducing a new toggle that lets users choose whether they want to have “Take notes for me” start automatically any time they are hosting a meeting. Previously, meeting hosts had to manually enable “Take notes for me” when they scheduled a call. | Learn more about new user controls for 'Take notes for me' in Google Meet.

Emojis reactions in Gmail will now be on by default

In 2025, we introduced the ability to react to emails in Gmail with emojis. This feature lets users respond quickly to acknowledge receipt of an email in a fun, informal and more authentic way. While initially enabled as an opt-in feature for early customer access, starting February 9, 2026, emoji reactions in Gmail will be enabled by default. | Learn more about default emoji reactions in Gmail.
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What’s changing

In 2025, we introduced the ability to react to emails in Gmail with emojis. This feature lets users respond quickly to acknowledge receipt of an email in a fun, informal and more authentic way. While initially enabled as an opt-in feature for early customer access, starting February 9, 2026, emoji reactions in Gmail will be enabled by default.

Organizations wishing to disable this feature can do so at any time in the Admin console, and the feature will not be enabled by default for organizations who have previously disabled or modified this feature setting in the Admin console (check the Audit & Investigation tool to confirm). 

Whether you’re using a ‘thanks’ emoji to express gratitude, voting for a team dinner with a food emoji, or congratulating your client for reaching a milestone with a celebratory emoji, emoji reactions provide an expressive and more personal way to respond to emails.

Note that reactions cannot be sent in certain scenarios, for example if an email was received via a Google Group email alias or if there is a Google Group on the recipient list. Visit the Help Center to learn more about these scenarios.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers.

Resources

Read More

We’re introducing a new toggle that lets users choose whether they want to have “Take notes for me” start automatically any time they are hosting a meeting. 

Previously, meeting hosts had to manually enable “Take notes for me” when they scheduled a call. Hosts and select participants could also enable the experience during a call. With this update, users can choose to enable this feature any time they host meetings.

This new toggle is OFF by default. Users can choose to enable or disable it at any time. There are also no changes for hosts or select participants to turn meeting notes off at any time during a meeting. 

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for Google Workspace:

  • Business Standard and Plus
  • Enterprise Standard and Plus
  • Google AI Pro for Education
  • Frontline Plus

Resources

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Google Meet Speech Translation allows translation in near-real time, bridging language barriers across users and organizations. The feature is currently available in alpha but will launch more broadly in beta on January 27, 2026.

Starting today, admins will see a setting to control this feature in the Admin console under Meet service settings > Gemini settings. It will be ON by default and can be disabled at the OU level.

A few important things to note:

  • The feature is only available if the Gemini for Meet admin setting has been enabled.
  • If a user turns on translation, everyone in that meeting will see that translation is being used.
  • Users cannot force other users to be translated or to hear translations.
  • The feature will remain in beta, meaning that feature availability and translation quality may vary.
  • See our blog post to learn more about the translation technology behind the feature.

Speech translation admin setting with box checked to let users enable Speech translation

Speech translation admin setting

A demonstration of users enablinging speech translation

Enabling Speech translation in Meet

Note that these admin settings do not affect users participating in the current alpha program.

Rollout pace

Admin setting
End user feature

Availability

Available for Google Workspace:
  • Business Plus
  • Enterprise Plus
  • Frontline Plus
Also available to:
  • Google AI Pro and Ultra
  • Google AI Ultra for Business add-on
  • Google AI Pro for Education add-on

Resources

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Useful Links

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Learn about more Google Workspace launches

On the “What’s new in Google Workspace?” Help Center page, learn about new products and features launching in Google Workspace, including smaller changes that haven’t been announced on the Google Workspace Updates blog.

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