This official feed from the Google Workspace team provides essential information about new features and improvements for Google Workspace customers.


 

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.

New to Google Meet: Continue your conversations in Google Chat
GStarting November 10, your Google Meet in-meeting messages will be powered by and available in Google Chat. That means the meaningful feedback that was messaged during the meeting, or key resources and links that were shared are now easily accessible to meeting attendees after the meeting, in a shared Google Chat conversation. | Learn more about continuing conversations between Chat and Meet

Controls for restricting conversation creation in Google Chat available to more organizations
We are expanding an existing Google Chat feature to more Workspace customers. This feature gives administrators the ability to limit who can create new conversations in Google Chat. When this setting is applied to users (through an organizational unit or a Google Group), those users will be prevented from initiating new conversations, or adding new members to existing conversations. | Learn more about the new Google Chat controls

Updated Chat header helps you navigate chat more quickly and easily
We are introducing a redesigned Google Chat conversation header on the web. The new header offers a simpler, more consistent layout that makes key tools easier to find and use. It includes a side panel where users can access shared content and manage tasks without leaving the conversation view. | Learn more about the new header in Google Chat

Set sharing expirations on files and folders in shared drives
We previously introduced the option to set expirations on files that reside in shared drives using the Google Drive API. Today, we are bringing the ability to set expiring access for files and folders in shared drives directly from the sharing dialog. This highly-requested feature brings the ease and security of My Drive access controls into your collaborative shared drives. | Learn more about expiring access in shared drives

Bringing inline threading to direct messages in Google Chat
We’re excited to announce that inline threading is rolling out for direct messages (DMs) and group direct messages (gDMs) in Google Chat. This has been a highly requested feature, and we're pleased to deliver it as part of our effort to simplify the Chat experience and address top user feedback about conversation consistency. | Learn more about threading in Chat DMs

Gemini Deep Research now integrates with your Workspace content
We’re expanding the capabilities of Gemini’s Deep Research feature by integrating it with your Google Workspace apps. This update allows Deep Research to seamlessly gather information from your content in Gmail, Chat, and Drive - including Slides, Sheets and Docs files - in addition to the web, to create a more comprehensive and personalized report. | Learn more about using Deep Research with your Workspace content

Use a wider range of emoji reactions in Google Meet
Google Meet users now have access to the full emoji library for reactions in Google Meet. Reactions let users engage with the content in a meeting, share meaningful feedback or praise, and celebrate company culture all through emoji. | Learn more about additional emoji reactions in Meet

What’s changing 

Google Meet users now have access to the full emoji library for reactions in Google Meet. Reactions let users engage with the content in a meeting, share meaningful feedback or praise, and celebrate company culture all through emoji. 


A user sending Emoji reactions “Heart on fire” and “Party face” from the extended set 

Getting started 


Limitations 

  • Meet Rooms hardware will not have the extended Emoji selections available but will be able to receive and display reactions from the extended Emoji set. The currently existing options will remain available to send reactions. Joining the Meet call with companion mode from your personal device will enable you to send reactions from the extended Emoji set. 
  • Live stream viewers will not have the extended Emoji selections available but will be able to receive and display reactions from the extended Emoji set. The current existing options will remain available to send reactions. 
  • On iOS devices, the capability to send reactions from the extended set will be added at a later point in time. On the initial rollout, iOS users will be able to see reactions from the extended set sent by those on compatible platforms. 
  • Organizational custom Emojis are not supported. 

Rollout pace 

Admin controls 


End user feature availability 


Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 

  • Business Standard and Plus 
  • Enterprise Standard and Plus 

Resources 

What’s changing

We’re expanding the capabilities of Gemini’s Deep Research feature by integrating it with your Google Workspace apps. This update allows Deep Research to seamlessly gather information from your content in Gmail, Chat, and Drive - including Slides, Sheets and Docs files - in addition to the web, to create a more comprehensive and personalized report.

Previously, users had to manually upload individual files from Drive to supplement their Deep Research. Now, Deep Research can pull securely from your Workspace content, including emails and even chats, informing reports with relevant context.


This update helps end users, including students, educators and those in small businesses, to do their best work by making research more efficient and context-aware. Your users can now integrate information directly from:

  • Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, and PDFs in Drive, including non-Google files
  • Context from emails in Gmail
  • Information from Chat messages
Example use cases for end users:

  • Business planning: Users can ask Deep Research to kickstart analysis for a new product using team documents, build out a competitor report referencing internal strategy memos and communications, or help onboard onto a new project quickly after analyzing documents, emails, and chat history.
  • Project catch-up: Get quickly caught up on an in-progress project by asking, "Catch me up on my <some project you have docs, chats, emails about. e.g., my remodeling project>. What are some decisions I need to make, and for each, can you research potential options".
  • Academic research: Students and faculty can ask Deep Research to review their existing notes and research papers on a topic and combine that with web research to pull together an insightful report that includes insights from their own documents.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for Google Workspace:

  • Business Starter, Standard, Plus
  • Enterprise Starter, Standard, Plus
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus
  • Frontline Starter and Standard
  • Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Nonprofits
Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons:

  • Gemini Business*
  • Gemini Enterprise*
  • Google AI Pro for Education
*As of January 15, 2025, we’re no longer offering the Gemini Business and Gemini Enterprise add-ons for sale. Please refer to this announcement for more details

Resources

What’s changing

We’re excited to announce that inline threading is rolling out for direct messages (DMs) and group direct messages (gDMs) in Google Chat. This has been a highly requested feature, and we're pleased to deliver it as part of our effort to simplify the Chat experience and address top user feedback about conversation consistency.

Until now, inline threading was only available in spaces. With this update, you can now reply in-thread to any message in a direct conversation, just as you do in a space. This helps to keep conversations organized, allowing you and your colleagues to follow specific topics and avoid cluttering the main chat stream.

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. This feature will be ON by default as it rolls out.

Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

What’s changing

We previously introduced the option to set expirations on files that reside in shared drives using the Google Drive API. Today, we are bringing the ability to set expiring access for files and folders in shared drives directly from the sharing dialog. This highly-requested feature brings the ease and security of My Drive access controls into your collaborative shared drives.

File expirations

You can now set expirations when sharing files in a shared drive. This lets you add an expiration date right in the sharing dialog for temporary collaborators, ensuring access is automatically revoked and eliminating the need for manual cleanup.
Add expiration while sharing files in shared drives.

Add expiration while sharing files in shared drives.

Folder expirations

For shared drive folders, you can now apply an expiration date specifically to the Viewer role. This setting is easily accessible in the folder's sharing dialog, helping you automatically remove read-only access when a collaborator's temporary need is finished.
Add expiration for Viewer role while sharing folders in shared drives.

Consistent expiration behavior in My Drive

We're standardizing access expiration for files and folders in My Drive. The experience is now consistent with shared drives, making it more predictable for you to know when access will expire.

Old behavior: If you granted someone temporary Editor access to a file inside a parent folder they could only view, they would lose all access to the file once their Editor permission expired.

New behavior: When their temporary Editor access expires, their permission will revert to the access they have on the parent folder (in this case, Viewer). They will not lose access to the file completely.

Editor access expires, and reverts to Viewer access (user has Viewer access on the parent folder).
Editor access expires, and reverts to Viewer access (user has Viewer access on the parent folder).

Getting started

You can only set sharing expirations on Web and Android phones. Expirations cannot be set on iOS devices in My Drive or shared drives.

Rollout pace

Availability

Available to Google Workspace:

  • Business Starter, Standard, Plus
  • Enterprise Starter, Standard, Plus
  • Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Education Standard, Plus
  • Nonprofits
  • Frontline Starter, Standard, Plus
Also available to:
  • Google One AI Premium 
  • Google AI Pro and Ultra
  • Gemini Business, Enterprise*
*As of January 15, 2025, we’re no longer offering the Gemini Business and Gemini Enterprise add-ons for sale. Please refer to this announcement for more details

Resources


What’s changing

We are introducing a redesigned Google Chat conversation header on the web. The new header offers a simpler, more consistent layout that makes key tools easier to find and use. It includes a side panel where users can access shared content and manage tasks without leaving the conversation view. The panel’s width can be adjusted or expanded to a full-screen view as needed.

Specifically, the new header has icons which can be used to: 

  • Select “Shared” to access shared files, links and media. 
  • Select “Tasks” to create and manage space tasks.
  • Select “Threads” to see and respond to active threads. 
  • Select “Board” to see pinned messages, files and shared links.  
Navigating between Shared, Tasks, Threads, and Board by clicking on header icons


Navigating between Shared, Tasks, Threads, and Board by clicking on header icons


Side panels can expand into fullscreen with the drag bar
Side panels can expand into fullscreen with the drag bar

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be on by default. There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be on by default for users on the web. To use it, look for the icons in the top right of your Chat window. Use our Help Center to learn how to navigate Google Chat

Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

What’s changing

We are expanding an existing Google Chat feature, previously only available for Education customers, to more Workspace customers.

This feature gives administrators the ability to limit who can create new conversations in Google Chat. When this setting is applied to users (through an organizational unit or a Google Group), those users will be prevented from initiating new conversations, or adding new members to existing conversations.

Users with this restriction can continue to converse in conversations they are already a member of. 

Why it’s important

Similar to how this feature is used for students, it allows organizations to enable Chat for a segment of employees such that they can receive important messages and contribute to existing conversations, while limiting their ability to create new, unmanaged conversations. This helps provide a safer and easier way for organizations to communicate. 

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be OFF by default. It can be enabled for specific users by placing them in an Organizational Unit (OU) or a Google Group and applying the setting in the Admin console.
  • End users: There is no end-user setting for this feature. If this policy is applied to your account by your administrator, you will not be able to start new conversations or create spaces, but you can still reply to conversations you are added to.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Business Plus
  • Enterprise Standard and Plus
  • Business Continuity and Continuity Plus 
  • Frontline Plus and Frontline Standard 

Resources

What’s happening? 

Starting November 10, your Google Meet in-meeting messages will be powered by and available in Google Chat. 

That means the meaningful feedback that was messaged during the meeting, or key resources and links that were shared are now easily accessible to meeting attendees after the meeting, in a shared Google Chat conversation.


This change brings the power of Google Chat to Meet, creating a richer in-meeting messaging experience. Meeting attendees can now respond to messages with emojis, and share images and files directly in Google Meet. Attendees can send pre-reads and other meeting materials to the group ahead of the meeting in Google Chat, and these resources will be available in Google Meet throughout the call. This launch also consolidates all your messaging and conversations into Google Chat, making it easy to find messages or shared files all in one place. 


This change is designed to improve post-meeting follow-through, leading to increased team productivity, and we’re excited for what this will mean for your teams and their collaboration. 

Getting started 

Admins: 

  • Availability: All end users in your org will have this feature on eligible meetings. 
  • Data retention & DLP: These messages are stored in a Google Chat conversation, and will respect the retention policies and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) rules you have configured for Google Chat. 
  • If disabled by host: If a host turns off continuous meeting chat for a specific meeting, that meeting will use the existing, unlinked in-call messaging. To retain such messages, you must record the meeting

End Users: 

  • Eligible meetings: This feature is available for meetings scheduled in Google Calendar. It applies to the meeting host and all other invited attendees who are part of the host's domain. 
  • Host control: Meeting hosts retain full control and can disable this feature for any meeting. This option must be toggled in the Google Calendar event's video call options before the meeting starts and cannot be changed once the meeting is in progress. 



  • External attendees: To ensure security and clarity, external attendees will only have access to the chat during the time they are in the meeting. They will not be able to participate in a conversation before a meeting nor see the conversation history after one. Internal attendees will see clear ‘external’ indicators and banners when guests are present in the conversation. 



Rollout pace 

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (up to 30 days for feature visibility) starting no earlier than November 10, 2025
  • Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting no earlier than December 3, 2025

Availability 

Available to all Google Workspace business and enterprise customers with the following plans: 

  • Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus 
  • Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus 
  • Frontline Starter, Frontline Standard, Frontline Plus 

Resources 

 

A summary of announcements from the last two weeks:
The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog over the last two weeks. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Gemini in Google Sheets can now analyze data across multiple tables
Gemini in Sheets can understand and analyze multiple tables within a single tab of a spreadsheet.  This new functionality allows you to ask questions and perform analysis that spans multiple data sources, dramatically increasing the power and accuracy of your queries. | Learn more about the upgrades to Gemini in Sheets

Protecting Gmail users from XS-Search with Cross-Origin Opener Policy (COOP)
Gmail is enhancing user security by enabling the Cross-Origin Opener Policy (COOP). As a result, developers of websites and browser extensions opening or manipulating the Gmail page may have to update their code to ensure continued functionality when enforcement begins on January 20, 2026. There is no action needed from Workspace admins or end users. | Learn more about COOP for Gmail

AI credit overages admin control and related billing
We previously announced an increased credit limit of 25,000 credits per user per month for Google AI Ultra for Business users. Now, we're adding a new admin control that enables admins to allow users with an Google AI Ultra for Business license to exceed their 25,000 per user per month AI credit limit. | Learn more about the new admin usage and billing controls

Educators can now convert rubrics in Google Classroom from Drive or local files with help from Gemini
educators can now quickly adapt existing rubrics from Drive or local files for Google Classroom assignments with Gemini's assistance. From the Rubric menu in the assignment creation screen, educators can now select “Convert from file” to instantly turn existing rubrics from various files and use them in Google Classroom, without the need to enter the information manually. | Learn more about adapting rubrics in Google Classroom

Use emoji reactions in your client-side encrypted documents
We’re excited to announce that client-side encrypted (CSE) files including Google Docs, Sheets and Slides now support emoji reactions. Users can use emojis to react to comments and content, bringing an expressive collaboration feature to CSE files. | Learn more about emoji reactions in CSE docs

Ask Gemini in Google Meet coming to Workspace enterprise customers
Last month, we announced that Ask Gemini in Meet was starting to roll out for select Workspace customers. Today, the experience is now rolling out to Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus domains. Ask Gemini in Meet brings the power of Gemini into your organization’s meetings. Acting as a personal assistant, it can help make meetings more productive and more efficient. | Learn more about the expansion of Ask Gemini in Meet

Introducing a new waiting rooms experience in Google Meet
We’re introducing waiting rooms in Google Meet, giving you more control over your meetings. As a meeting host or co-host, you can choose to have participants join a waiting room before they join the call. | Learn more about waiting rooms in Google Meet

New LaTeX features in the Gemini app
We are introducing improved LaTeX rendering and PDF export capabilities directly within the Gemini app. LaTeX is a document preparation system widely used in academic, scientific, and technical fields to create high-quality documents with complex formatting, such as mathematical equations, tables, and multi-column layouts. | Learn more about LaTeX in Gemini

Generate presentations in the Gemini app
We are introducing the ability to create slide presentations in the Gemini app through Canvas. Simply provide an idea with a simple text prompt or upload a source, and Gemini will generate a set of slides — complete with a theme and relevant images. Then, export the presentation from the Gemini app directly to Google Slides to continue to refine or collaborate with others. | Learn more about generating presentations with Gemini

Enhanced admin audit log events
We are updating the schema and event modeling for several Admin audit log events, specifically some of the events related to account security, Gmail, and Drive settings, along with other admin-defined setting audit logs. These improvements aim to make the logs more understandable, detailed, and precise. | Learn more about the enhanced audit logs

More powerful pivot tables in Connected Sheets
We are rolling out two significant updates to Connected Sheets pivot tables backed by BigQuery, designed to increase analytical capacity and streamline your workflow. First, we’re doubling row capacity for pivot tables backed by BigQuery in Connected Sheets, from 100,000 to 200,000 rows. Second, we’re launching the ability to “drill down” into Connected Sheets pivot tables, allowing you to immediately access the granular data making up any aggregated value. | Learn more about the improved pivot tables in Connected Sheets

Improve your writing by grounding Gemini in Google Docs in sources
We’re excited to announce source-grounded writing help in Google Docs. Gemini will automatically curate a list of sources linked in your document and you can choose to ask it to only pull details from those sources when providing writing assistance via the side panel. This will keep suggestions focused and grounded in trusted content. | Learn more about source grounding Gemini in Google Docs

Improving the Workday Google Chat app
The latest update  for Workday Google Chat app update makes it easier to manage time off with a single, improved flow to request, view, or cancel time off, along with quick commands to check balances and company holidays. | Learn more about the improvements to the Workday Chat app


 What’s changing

The latest update  for Workday Google Chat app update makes it easier to manage time off with a single, improved flow to request, view, or cancel time off, along with quick commands to check balances and company holidays.


Improving the Workday Google Chat app

Getting started

  • Workday Admins: Workday Admins must activate OAuth and create a new API client for the Google integration setup within Workday. The workday admin must make note of the following details during the API client setup, required for the next step: 
    • Client ID
    • Secret ID
    • Workday REST API Endpoint
    • Workday Token Endpoint
    • Workday Authorization Endpoint
  • Workspace Admins: Admins need to allowlist the add-on to ensure end users have access. Visit the Help Center to learn how to manage Google Workspace Marketplace apps. Once allowed, the admin can either install the app to the domain, or install individually. After installation you will be asked to configure authorization in Workday (this requires the information above obtained during API client setup); This authorization will apply to all users of Workday within your domain. 
  • End users: If enabled by your admin, install the add-on by going to the Google Workspace Marketplace listing. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using the Workday app in Google Chat.

Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

What’s changing

We’re excited to announce source-grounded writing help in Google Docs. Gemini will automatically curate a list of sources linked in your document and you can choose to ask it to only pull details from those sources when providing writing assistance via the side panel. This will keep suggestions focused and grounded in trusted content. With source-grounded writing help you can:

  • Create contextual and reliable output from Gemini 
  • Query available knowledge on a topic, getting accurate answers that are tailored to your needs

Using this trusted and relevant content can help ensure you’re using exactly the context you need — no guesswork or tab switching required. 

Additionally, this launch can help save users time. All users have to do is link files in their document, which many users already do today, and then select "Document links" to ground on those files. 

Previously, users would have to remember and individually add files in the prompt field to ground Gemini in them. Adding files individually is still available for users that want to ground on files that are not linked in the document. However, this launch will make it quicker and easier for users that have already linked the relevant files in the doc to ground Gemini on that information, and can help ensure important sources are not left out.


Ground Gemini by selecting linked sources in the side panel
Ground Gemini by selecting linked sources in the side panel

Who’s impacted

End users

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be available by default and is available in the side panel of Docs. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to collaborate with Gemini in Google Docs. 

The dialog in the side panel where users can choose to ground Gemini in linked files


The dialog in the side panel where users can choose to ground Gemini in linked files

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for Google Workspace:

  • Business Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise Standard, and Plus
  • Gemini Business, Enterprise
  • Google AI Pro for Education
  • Google One AI Premium 

Resources

What’s happening

We are rolling out two significant updates to Connected Sheets pivot tables backed by BigQuery, designed to increase analytical capacity and streamline your workflow.
 
First, we’re doubling row capacity for pivot tables backed by BigQuery in Connected Sheets, from 100,000 to 200,000 rows. This change will allow users to bring in substantially larger views of BigQuery datasets in a single pivot table, enabling wider, more comprehensive analyses within the familiar Sheets environment.

Second, we’re launching the ability to “drill down” into Connected Sheets pivot tables, allowing you to immediately access the granular data making up any aggregated value. Users can now double-click on a pivot table cell or use the right-click > Show details menu option to instantly create a pre-configured extract, focusing on the specific records that make up that summary metric.

Automatically create a pre-configured extract to drill down into any pivot table aggregated cell


Automatically create a pre-configured extract to drill down into any pivot table aggregated cell

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

What’s changing

We are updating the schema and event modeling for several Admin audit log events, specifically some of the events related to account security, Gmail, and Drive settings, along with other admin-defined setting audit logs. These improvements aim to make the logs more understandable, detailed, and precise.  A complete list of the updates can be found in the Help Center

The updates involve changes to event names, event types, and the volume of these affected log events. Some legacy events may be redundant as a part of this change. If you're using any legacy events, some of the updates might require changes to your existing queries, alerts, and reports to get the full benefit of the changes. Both the new and old events will continue to be available for you to make the necessary changes.

Who’s impacted

Admins 

Why it matters

Granular audit logs are critical to helping organizations investigate cybersecurity incidents and understand their data usage. The changes announced today expand the depth of analysis that can be performed.  

Rollout pace

Getting started

  • Admins:  As the changes become available, you can get started with your analysis in either the Audit and Investigation tool
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature.

Availability

  • Available for Google Workspace with Audit Log eligible licenses.  To learn more about the Audit Log availability for your license types, please review this article

What’s changing

We are introducing the ability to create slide presentations in the Gemini app through Canvas. Simply provide an idea with a simple text prompt or upload a source, and Gemini will generate a set of slides — complete with a theme and relevant images. Then, export the presentation from the Gemini app directly to Google Slides to continue to refine or collaborate with others.

  • Working professionals can upload a sales brief or information on your company to create an initial pitch deck, leverage a campaign brief/product doc and generate a launch presentation, upload a large research report or document to distill into a summary, and more.
  • Educators can instantly create a first draft of a lesson presentation with engaging visual aids, saving valuable prep time that can be focused on instructional strategy.
  • Students can transform their class notes or a document into a structured presentation, helping them quickly organize their ideas for a class project.
  • Nonprofit Executive Directors can transform their measurement and evaluation results into a structured presentation for their next board meeting.
Simply open the Gemini app, select “Canvas” in the toolbar, and ask Gemini to “create a presentation.” You can specify a topic or upload your own source with the prompt.


Generating presentations is available on Gemini web (gemini.google.com) and mobile web, with availability on the Gemini app on Android and iOS coming soon. 

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for Google Workspace: 

  • Business Starter, Standard and Plus 
  • Enterprise Starter, Standard and Plus 
  • Essentials, Enterprise Essentials and Enterprise Essentials Plus 
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard and Plus
  • Nonprofits
Also available to:

  • Google AI Pro and Ultra
  • Google AI Pro for Education

Resources

What’s happening

We are introducing improved LaTeX rendering and PDF export capabilities directly within the Gemini app. LaTeX is a document preparation system widely used in academic, scientific, and technical fields to create high-quality documents with complex formatting, such as mathematical equations, tables, and multi-column layouts.

Previously, working with LaTeX required specialized editors and significant technical expertise to find and fix errors. With this update, Gemini makes it much easier for everyone to create professional documents.

Our new LaTeX features include:

  • PDF generation: Users can now generate a pdf using LaTeX, preview it in gemini and download the pdf, ready for sharing or printing
  • Easy editing in Canvas documents: You can now add LaTeX to any document in Canvas by clicking the 𝒇𝚡 button in canvas and edit any LaTeX by clicking on the formula directly in canvas
  • Copying: Copying LaTeX from any response in Gemini will now copy the unrendered LaTeX code
This update makes Gemini a more powerful tool for students, researchers, engineers, and anyone in your organization who needs to create polished, complex documents like academic papers, problem sets, technical reports, or resumes.


Exporting to PDF is available on web and mobile web with read-only viewing available in the Gemini app on Android and iOS. 

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.

Rollout pace

  • This feature is now available.

Availability

Available for Google Workspace:

  • Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus
  • Nonprofits
Also available to:

  • Google AI Pro and Ultra
  • Gemini Business, Enterprise*
  • Google AI Pro for Education
*As of January 15, 2025, we’re no longer offering the Gemini Business and Gemini Enterprise add-ons for sale. Please refer to this announcement for more details.

Resources


What's happening

We’re introducing waiting rooms in Google Meet, giving you more control over your meetings. As a meeting host or co-host, you can choose to have participants join a waiting room before they join the call.

This feature is designed to prevent meeting interruptions and give you time to prepare before admitting attendees. From the waiting room, participants will see a message letting them know they're in the right place and will be brought into the call shortly. This ensures that everyone joins the meeting at the right time, leading to smoother, more productive discussions.

With this update, hosts and co-hosts can:

  • Enable a waiting room before a meeting starts.
  • Admit or deny entry to participants waiting to join.
  • Send one-way announcements to participants in the waiting room.
  • Move existing participants back to the waiting room if needed.

This is particularly useful for scenarios like board meetings, interviews, parent-teacher conferences, or client meetings where you may want to speak with participants privately before they join the main group.


Easily enable the waiting room when creating a Google Calendar event.


Easily enable the waiting room when creating a Google Calendar event.


The waiting room provides a clear and welcoming experience for attendees waiting to join.


The waiting room provides a clear and welcoming experience for attendees waiting to join.

Getting started

  • Admins:  This feature will be OFF by default for end users, but admins can change the default setting at the domain, OU, and group level. 
  • End users: Meeting hosts and co-hosts can enable a waiting room when they create or edit a Google Calendar event. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using waiting rooms in Google Meet.

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for Google Workspace

  • Business Standard and Plus
  • Enterprise Standard and Plus
  • Enterprise Essentials and Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning add-on
  • Workspace Individual subscribers

Resources

What’s happening

Last month, we announced that Ask Gemini in Meet was starting to roll out for select Workspace customers. Today, the experience is now rolling out to Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus domains.

You can use Ask Gemini to: 

  • Summarize ongoing discussions or get a recap of what someone said 
  • Improve meeting outcomes by identifying key takeaways, decisions, and action items 
  • Catch up on what you missed if you joined late (if Gemini powered note taking was enabled) 
Ask Gemini in Meet brings the power of Gemini into your organization’s meetings. Acting as a personal assistant, it can help make meetings more productive and more efficient.

Gemini in Google Meet

Additional details:

  • A user’s interactions and responses from Ask Gemini in Meet are private to that user.
  • Ask Gemini generates answers by referring to meeting captions, Google Workspace resources (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, etc.) that the user has permission to view, and content from Google search and public websites.
  • No caption data will be stored after the meeting ends. Using Ask Gemini in Meet does not generate a meeting recording or transcript.
  • Ask Gemini in Meet cannot answer questions about meeting discussions that happen before the user has joined the meeting, unless "take notes for me" is on.
  • Only meetings in English are currently supported, but support for more languages is coming soon.
  • Ask Gemini in Meet will be ON by default, but can be turned off by meetings hosts and Admins.

Rollout pace

Availability

After this rollout completes, Ask Gemini in Meet will be available for the following Google Workspace customers:
  • Business Plus
  • Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus
If you’d like immediate access for your organization, you can join the Google Workspace Gemini Alpha.

What’s changing

We’re excited to announce that client-side encrypted (CSE) files including Google Docs, Sheets and Slides now support emoji reactions. Users can use emojis to react to comments and content, bringing an expressive collaboration feature to CSE files. 

This update brings a core Google Workspace feature into our secure CSE framework, allowing users to provide quick feedback, express agreement, or acknowledge updates. Teams can now work together more efficiently and expressively, while still benefiting from the robust security of client-side encryption.

Emoji reactions are fully integrated in CSE documents. Users can add, resolve, delete, and re-open emoji reactions, and these reactions are also surfaced in a file’s version history. Reactions are preserved during export or when editing a Microsoft Office file in Workspace. They are also preserved when additional encryption is added to or removed from a file.


Emoji reactions to content and comments in a CSE Doc

Emoji reactions to content and comments in a CSE Doc

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 emoji reactions.

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for Google Workspace

  • Enterprise Plus
  • Education Standard and Plus
  • Frontline Plus

Resources

What’s happening

This year, we’ve been bringing the capabilities of Gemini into Google Classroom to help educators get help with common tasks. In June, we launched Gemini in Classroom to help educators create first drafts of content and resources, accessed through one central destination in Classroom. Recently, we started to bring Gemini into educator workflows with the ability to generate stories in Read Along in Classroom using Gemini. Starting today, educators can now quickly adapt existing rubrics from Drive or local files for Google Classroom assignments with Gemini's assistance.

From the Rubric menu in the assignment creation screen, educators can now select “Convert from file” to instantly turn existing rubrics from various files and use them in Google Classroom, without the need to enter the information manually.


convert rubrics in Google Classroom

Additional details

This feature is a part of Gemini in Google Classroom. Gemini in Classroom is only available in English for education users over the age of 18.

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more.

Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

What’s changing

We previously announced an increased credit limit of 25,000 credits per user per month for Google AI Ultra for Business users. Now, we're adding a new admin control that enables admins to allow users with an Google AI Ultra for Business license to exceed their 25,000 per user per month AI credit limit. If a customer turns on this setting and has users who exceed their monthly allocation, then we'll send them an invoice at the end of the month to pay for any overages. 

We hope this additional control will enable admins to make sure their users have the right amount of access to the tools they need. 

Additional details

  • Pricing depends on your local currency. You can use the Admin console to review specific pricing for credit overages in your region before you enable this feature.
  • Your organization is billed only for the additional credits they use. You'll see a separate line item on your monthly invoice for any additional credits used during the previous billing cycle.
  • You can't enable credit overages if your account is managed by a reseller. 

Getting started

Rollout pace

  • The Admin console setting is available now. Credit overages will begin accruing on November 1, 2025.

Availability

  • Available for Google AI Ultra for Business

Resources

What’s happening

Gmail is enhancing user security by enabling the Cross-Origin Opener Policy (COOP). As a result, developers of websites and browser extensions opening or manipulating the Gmail page may have to update their code to ensure continued functionality when enforcement begins on January 20, 2026. There is no action needed from Workspace admins or end users.

COOP background

Cross-Site Search (XS-Search) is a type of Cross-Site Leaks (XS-Leaks) attack that targets query-based search systems, like Gmail. Attackers exploit this vulnerability by gaining control of a Gmail window, either by opening a new popup or accessing an existing one via its window handle. Once they have this access, they can gather information via a side channel to determine if specific search results exist by repeatedly loading different search terms, thereby leaking sensitive user data.

COOP is a web security feature designed to isolate the web applications from untrusted origins. This measure will prevent attackers from accessing Gmail's window handle, thereby protecting users from various Cross-Site Search (XS-Search) attacks that rely on window handles for collecting side-channel information, such as frame counting. This also significantly hinders attacks like cache probing, which rely on timing and other observations for resources that Gmail loads for search results. While these attacks don't directly collect side-channel information through the window handles themselves, COOP prevents repeated searches and thereby increases difficulty and reduces effectiveness, making them far less of a threat.

Who’s impacted

Websites or browser extensions that open Gmail in a pop-up window and interact with that window by accessing its properties (closed, location, length, focus) or invoking its functions (close, postMessage). Also, browser extensions that are injected into Gmail page and access the opener handle which is a reference to the window that opened the current Gmail page.

Additional details

To enforce COOP, the Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy header will be present in the response:

Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy: same-origin-allow-popups; report-to="gmail-web-coop-coep"
Report-To:{"group":"gmail-web-coop-coep","endpoints":[{"url":"https://csp.withgoogle.com/csp/report-to/gmail-web"}]}

Getting started

  • Developers:
    • For websites and browser extensions opening Gmail, refactor the offending code to avoid accessing the window properties or functions through the window handle and instead, utilize alternative APIs to achieve the desired functionality (e.g., chrome.tabs, Messaging).
    • For browser extensions injected into the Gmail page, instead of trying to communicate with or access the opener, the browser extension should be updated so it doesn't need to interact with it at all and the extension's logic should be revised to work independently. If that is not possible, browser extensions can use existing APIs (e.g., chrome.tabs) to implement their logic.
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. 

Rollout pace

  • Enforcement will begin on January 20, 2026. Rollout will be extended (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility).

Resources