This official feed from the Google Workspace team provides essential information about new features and improvements for Google Workspace customers.
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As previously announced, skills in the Gemini app are starting to roll out today, with an expected completion by mid-November. In the coming weeks, we’ll also introduce critical features like the ability to share Gemini app skills and an integration with Google Drive. We’ll post on the Workspace Updates blog as soon as those capabilities start rolling out.

We also want to share an update on the rollout of skills in Workspace. We previously shared that the launch to Rapid Release would be complete by October 12, 2026, and the rollout to Scheduled Release would begin on October 19, 2026. While we work to ensure skills in Workspace launch in a safe and reliable manner, those rollouts are slightly delayed. We will share the updated timeline here as soon as it’s confirmed. 

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Skills in the Gemini app
    • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts
  • Skills in Workspace
    • Business: Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
    • Enterprise: Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
    • Education Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education
    • Other Add-ons: AI Expanded Access

Note that skills in Workspace are available only to users over age 18; skills in the Gemini app will be available to users of all ages.

Resources

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You can now switch from watching a Google Meet live stream to participating with audio and video directly on Android. This feature is available for viewers who have been invited to both the live stream and the main meeting.

While watching a live stream on Android, you can switch roles using the meeting title, the live streaming badge, or the info button in the overflow menu. This in-app workflow eliminates the need to reopen join links or switch apps.

Existing meeting access permissions and domain policies apply, ensuring only authorized participants can join with media. Only eligible viewers will see the entry points, protecting the integrity of the meeting or event.

Role switching is already available for Meet clients on iOS and web.





Getting Started

  • Admins: There are no administrator controls for this feature.
  • End users: While watching a live stream on an Android device, eligible viewers will see an option to transition directly into the main meeting room as an active contributor.

Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

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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

Availability

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

Resources

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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

Rollout pace

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

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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

Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

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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.

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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

Availability

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

Resources

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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.

Our partners Southlight Services, Gamma Communications, Tata Communications & Telefonica Global Solutions have collaborated with Google Voice to offer these services in these countries.

Carrier Link allows Workspace customers to easily add phone numbers and calling plans from a certified local carrier, leveraging a pre-configured multi-tenant implementation of SIP Link.

This simplifies the process of setting up a cloud phone system, allowing customers to make and receive calls with payment handled by their local carrier and minimal configuration. Carrier Link is especially helpful for small businesses that want a reliable connection without the hassle of setting up their own hardware.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to Workspace customers with Google Voice Starter, Google Voice Standard, or Google Voice Premier subscriptions

Resources

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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. With this update, when a user is editing, they will see exactly what appears in the video at that specific timestamp, eliminating visual clutter from overlapping text boxes, stickers, and images.

This update simplifies the creation process by providing a true "what you see is what you get" editing workflow. Key improvements include:

  • Synchronized canvas display: The editing canvas dynamically updates as you scrub or move through the timeline, showing only the active elements at that exact moment.
  • Enhanced timeline interaction: Editors can click directly on object tracks within the timeline to move the playhead to that point.
  • Simplified scene management: Users no longer need to split scenes into smaller segments simply to manage multiple timed objects, making it easier to build multi-layered content like captions, lower thirds, and media overlays.

Point-in-time editing is the default behavior across all Google Vids sessions and requires no action from administrators. This streamlined experience will help users create polished video content more efficiently without managing overlapping elements.



Point-in-time editing in Google Vids

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

Availability

  • Business: Business Starter, Standard, Plus and Base
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Education: Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus
  • Consumer: Google AI Plus and Ultra
  • Other Editions: Frontline Starter, Standard, and Plus; Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus; Individual; Nonprofits
  • Education Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education; Teaching and Learning
  • Other Add-ons: AI Expanded Access

Resources

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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.

The refreshed app replaces and builds on the Trello for Gmail experience and adds the ability to create new cards from Google Chat. Existing Trello for Gmail users can continue using the app without reinstalling or reauthorizing it. To create cards from Google Chat, add Trello for Google Workspace to a Chat space or direct message and follow the sign-in prompt.


Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts. Requires a Trello account to use.

Resources

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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. Users can create and customize the following stock chart types:

  • High-Low-Close (HLC): plots the highest price, lowest price, and closing price for each period, showing both the trading range and where the period settled
  • Open-High-Low-Close (OHLC): adds the opening price, so you can see the full session in one marker and immediately tell whether the period closed up or down

Both types are built for the workflows financial analysts already run in Sheets, from tracking equities and commodities to building valuation models on historical price data.

Sheets stock chart support also comes with enhanced Microsoft Excel import compatibility. Previously, importing Excel files containing stock charts into Sheets would result in these charts being dropped entirely, forcing analysts to rebuild them manually. Now, HLC and OHLC stock charts are accurately preserved when moving files between Excel and Sheets.



User creating a stock chart in Google Sheets

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

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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.

Markdown is a standard text format widely used by Large Language Models (LLMs) to preserve structured content, like tables, headers, and bulleted lists, without the bulk of heavy file formats. Previously, you needed to import and convert Markdown files into a Doc format, which often altered formatting, stripped comments, and fragmented files.

Now that users can handle markdown files natively in Google Docs, they can open, edit, and collaborate on markdown files without changing the file type. Editing Markdown files in Docs also enables both users and agents to collaborate without forcing anyone to write raw syntax, handle manual file conversions, or give up Docs' real-time editing and commenting tools.

Drive also now supports rendered markdown, so you can view fully formatted, beautiful documents with clickable links and structured tables right in Drive.


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

Availability

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

Resources

Read More

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. Similarly, when a user is suspended, their owned secondary calendars will be suspended as well. This matches the behavior of primary calendars. To preserve a secondary calendar, ownership must be transferred to a new user before the original owner's account is deleted or suspended.

This update strengthens organizational data governance by ensuring that every secondary calendar is tied to a valid owner that determines organizational settings and policies applying to the data.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and Workspace Individual subscribers

Resources

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Create more natural, expressive AI voiceovers in Google Vids with upgraded Gemini 3.8 Flash Lite TTS

We are upgrading the underlying text-to-speech (TTS) engine powering AI voiceovers and avatar narration in Google Vids to the latest Gemini 3.8 Flash Lite TTS model. | Learn more.

Introducing skills in the Gemini app and Workspace, plus what’s next for Gems

We recently introduced skills—reusable prompts that guide Gemini—in the Gemini app and Google Workspace. Over the coming weeks, skills will roll out to Workspace users and eventually replace Gems as the tool for tailoring instructions for specific tasks. | Learn more.

Customize the style of your captions in Google Vids

Captions in Google Vids are now fully customizable. Until now, captions came in a set style. You can now change their font and typography, where they sit on screen, and how they animate, so they match your brand or the look of your video. | Learn more.

Programmatic comment and suggestion support now available in the Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides APIs

Developers can now programmatically create, read, and manage comments across Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides using their respective developer APIs. In Google Docs, this update also introduces API support for suggested edits, allowing automated tools and third-party systems to propose document revisions for user review rather than altering content directly. | Learn more.

Simple setup option for Workspace Client-side encryption

We are introducing a new option which can make the initial setup of Google Workspace Client-side encryption (CSE) significantly easier and faster for admins. | Learn more.

Find your learning tools all in one place with the student hub in Gemini

We recently announced a new, dedicated hub in the Gemini app to help get students started with all of Gemini's learning tools. Initially available in personal accounts, the Gemini student hub is now available to Google Workspace for Education users of all ages. | Learn more.

Built-in interoperability between Google Meet and Microsoft Teams on Android (AOSP) devices, now generally available

We are making video conferencing device interoperability between Google Meet and Microsoft Teams generally available. It was previously available in preview. | 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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We are making video conferencing device interoperability between Google Meet and Microsoft Teams generally available. It was previously available in preview. This launch will enable you to:

  • Join Microsoft Teams meetings from Android (AOSP)-based Google Meet hardware devices.
  • Join Google Meet meetings from Android (AOSP)-based Microsoft Teams Rooms devices.

See our early preview announcement for more details.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers with Google Meet hardware devices running Android/AOSP 

Resources

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We recently announced a new, dedicated hub in the Gemini app to help get students started with all of Gemini's learning tools. Initially available in personal accounts, the Gemini student hub is now available to Google Workspace for Education users of all ages. The hub helps keep students organized; they can start a study notebook, create flashcards, take a practice quiz, and more. As Gemini creates more learning tools, you’ll find them in the student hub.

Getting started

  • Admins: The Gemini app and related in-app tools are controlled by the Generative AI settings in the Workspace Admin console. The Gemini student hub is subject to these existing controls. Visit the Help Center for more information on turning the Gemini app on or off.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. To get started, visit gemini.google.com/students or select Students in the Gemini app menu.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and Workspace Individual subscribers outside of the European Economic Area (EEA), and users with personal Google accounts globally

Resources

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We are introducing a new option which can make the initial setup of Google Workspace Client-side encryption (CSE) significantly easier and faster for admins.

CSE now supports a simple setup path in the Admin console which can help customers get up and running with CSE in minutes. By combining Cloud HSM Keys with Google Identity, we have automated much of the setup flow which could be time consuming.  In a few clicks, admins can set up and deploy CSE, reducing the time to live and allowing customers to use their existing GCP resources to add CSE protection to your most sensitive data.

Customers use Client-side encryption across Workspace applications to encrypt emails, files, meetings and events, to comply with sovereignty and compliance regulations from HIPAA to ITAR. With Client-side encryption, data is encrypted by customer keys before it ever reaches Google servers, making the customer the sole arbiter of their data. Previously, this privacy control required deep technical knowledge to set up  a third-party key service and configure an identity provider. With simple setup, admins from enterprise to small businesses can start encrypting their important data within minutes.

For admins who require more custom configurations leveraging third-party key services, that option is also still available via the standard CSE setup process.


Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Enterprise: Enterprise Plus with the Assured Controls or Assured Controls Plus add-on

Resources

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Developers can now programmatically create, read, and manage comments across Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides using their respective developer APIs. In Google Docs, this update also introduces API support for suggested edits, allowing automated tools and third-party systems to propose document revisions for user review rather than altering content directly.

These additions allow organizations and developers to connect internal review tools, automated content pipelines, and project tracking systems directly to Google Workspace editors. Key capabilities include:

  • Docs API: Programmatically add, review, and reply to comments, and submit proposed text changes as suggestions.
  • Sheets API: Programmatically add, review, and reply to comments on specific cells.
  • Slides API: Programmatically add, review, and reply to comments associated with individual slides and specific presentation elements.

Programmatic comment support within the Docs, Sheets, and Slides Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers remains in developer preview in accordance with the preview status of the MCP servers.

Rollout pace

Getting started

Availability

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

Resources

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Captions in Google Vids are now fully customizable. Until now, captions came in a set style. You can now change their font and typography, where they sit on screen, and how they animate, so they match your brand or the look of your video.

Captions make videos easier to follow when the sound is off or when viewers prefer to read along. Captions that look good help your video catch people's attention on social feeds and in company channels. They also make it look finished and ready to share.

Increased customization options for captions can help:

  • Marketing and social teams: Match captions to brand fonts and colors for social ads and promo videos. 
  • Creators: Add animated, eye-catching captions to make short videos more engaging.

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

Availability

  • Business: Business Starter, Standard, Plus and Base
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Education: Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus
  • Consumer: Google AI Plus and Ultra
  • Other Editions: Frontline Starter, Standard, and Plus; Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus; Individual; Nonprofits
  • Education Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education; Teaching and Learning
  • Other Add-ons: AI Expanded Access

Resources

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Update (October 13, 2026): The launch of skills in Workspace is currently delayed. We'll publish a post when the rollout resumes.

We recently introduced skills—reusable prompts that guide Gemini—in the Gemini app and Google Workspace. Over the coming weeks, skills will roll out to Workspace users and eventually replace Gems as the tool for tailoring instructions for specific tasks.

Read on for more details on skills, plus critical information and dates related to the transition away from Gems in the Gemini app, Workspace, Google Classroom, and more.

What are skills?

Skills are reusable, custom instructions that you can leverage any time you’re prompting Gemini in the Gemini app and most Workspace apps. For example, you can create a brand voice skill to help you draft blog posts or a lesson planning skill to save time with class prep. You can even use multiple skills in the same prompt or at different points in the conversation.

To learn more about skills and how to create them in the Gemini app, Gemini Enterprise, and Workspace, business and enterprise users should check out our AI skills 101 handbook. Educational institutions should leverage our Gems transition guide for education. For a comprehensive list of resources, see the bottom of this post.

Note: Currently, skills do not sync between the Gemini app and Workspace apps. If you want to use a skill across both platforms, you must create it separately in each.


Create and use skills in the Gemini app

GIF showing how to use skill builder in Docs to draft a proposal using the "Proposal Architect" skill

Use skill builder in Google Docs to craft and share new skills with your team

How do skills differ from Gems?

Unlike Gems, skills function inline in your unified chat threads, meaning you can layer or "stack" multiple sets of custom instructions simultaneously in one prompt. For example, an educator can combine a "weekly newsletter" skill with an "institutional brand guidelines" skill to ensure on-brand communications, while a business user can pair a "vendor evaluator" skill with an "executive email drafter" skill to analyze vendors and draft a recommendation in one step.

In addition, skills are built entirely on the open, Markdown-native SKILL.md standard. This allows you to copy skills you’ve created on other platforms into the Gemini app and Workspace apps.

What happens to Gems?

For now, you can continue creating and using Gems in the Gemini app, though you can no longer create Workspace Studio flows with the “Ask a Gem" step. Existing flows with Ask a Gem steps will continue to work.

Over the coming months, we’ll gradually remove support for Gems across all surfaces and eventually auto-migrate any Gems remaining in the Gemini app to draft skills in the Gemini app. If you’d prefer to migrate sooner, you can manually recreate your Gems as skills in the Gemini app. Because skills in the Gemini app won’t automatically appear in Workspace, you’ll also need to recreate them in Workspace if you want to use them in Workspace apps.

Key dates

  • October 5, 2026: Skills begin rolling out in Workspace, with an expected completion by mid-November.
  • October 13, 2026: Skills begin rolling out in the Gemini app, with an expected completion by mid-November.
  • November 17, 2026: Gems move to the Settings panel of the Gemini app, but users can continue to create, edit, and use them.
  • No sooner than March 1, 2027 (business and enterprise only): Gems can no longer be created, edited, or used, and they’re removed from the Settings panel of the Gemini app. Flows in Workspace Studio with the Ask a Gem step stop working. Any remaining Gems in the Gemini app are auto-migrated to draft skills in the Gemini app.
  • No sooner than June 1, 2027 (education only): Gems can no longer be created, edited, or used, and they’re removed from the Settings panel of the Gemini app, as well as Google Classroom and third-party LMS’ supported by Gemini LTI™. Flows in Workspace Studio with the Ask a Gem step stop working. Any remaining Gems in the Gemini app are auto-migrated to draft skills in the Gemini app.
We’ll share more details on the auto-migration with admins at least 30 days in advance.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Skills in the Gemini app
    • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts
  • Skills in Workspace
    • Business: Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
    • Enterprise: Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
    • Education Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education
    • Other Add-ons: AI Expanded Access
Note that skills in Workspace are available only to users over age 18; skills in the Gemini app will be available to users of all ages.

Resources

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We are upgrading the underlying text-to-speech (TTS) engine powering AI voiceovers and avatar narration in Google Vids to the latest Gemini 3.8 Flash Lite TTS model.

High-quality voiceover is essential for compelling video communication. With this model upgrade, Google Vids creators will experience:

  • Superior Naturalness & Inflection: Improved sentence flow, lifelike pacing, and context-aware emphasis that reduces robotic cadences.
  • Fast Generation Latency: Rapid audio synthesis allows you to iterate on scripts and preview voiceovers in real time.

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

Availability

  • Business: Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Education: Education Plus
  • Consumer: Google AI Pro and Ultra
  • Other Editions: Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus; Individual; Nonprofits
  • Education Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education; Teaching and Learning
  • Other Add-ons: AI Expanded Access

Resources

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Use AI to supercharge your financial analysis with Workday for Google Sheets

Use AI to supercharge your financial analysis with Workday for Google Sheets Google Sheets Rapid Release Scheduled Release Workday for Google Sheets is a new add-on available in the Google Workspace Marketplace that connects Workday Adaptive Planning directly to Google Sheets and Slides. Deeply integrated with the AI-powered “Ask Workday” feature in Adaptive Planning, this add-on eliminates the need for manual CSV downloads. | Learn more.

New manual calculation setting in Google Sheets

We’re introducing a new manual calculation setting in Google Sheets to give you precise control over when formulas and other references update. The new manual calculation setting allows editors of complex or data-dense spreadsheets to pause automatic recalculation, batch their edits, and trigger a sheet-wide update at the exact moment they are ready to review the results. | Learn more.

Study notebooks in Gemini are now available for Google Workspace accounts

Now, we’re excited to share that users of all ages who are signed into a school or work-issued Google account will also have access to study notebooks if the Gemini app and Gemini Notebook are enabled by their admin. | Learn more.

Manually reorder and custom sort pivot tables in Google Sheets

Google Sheets now supports custom sorting and manual reordering in pivot tables. Users can now drag and drop rows and columns on a pivot table to match specific presentation needs and custom business hierarchies, rather than being restricted to standard ascending or descending alphanumeric order. | Learn more.

Introducing the new Confluence integration with Google Chat

Confluence by Atlassian is designed  for teams to store and share ideas, docs, and knowledge. Workspace customers can now use Confluence for Google Chat to bring relevant project context and information from Confluence directly into Chat conversations. This integration, which is part of the Atlassian add-on, enables teams to work more effectively by connecting real-time collaboration with source-of-truth documentation. | Learn more.

Quick notes in Take notes for me

Introducing Quick notes – high-level overview of main takeaways from your meetings that empowers you to quickly review essential information without diving into every single detail. Designed specifically for the efficient consumption of knowledge, the content fits onto a single page and is strictly limited to the most important meeting action items, outcomes, and talking points. It is built primarily for executive users, or anyone less involved in the deep details, who needs to extract information as fast as possible. | Learn more.

New Google Meet 'Take notes for me' settings for admins and end users take effect September 29th

Previously, we announced new admin and end user settings for Google Meet ‘Take notes for me’ pre-configuration. These settings will begin to take effect September 29th. | Learn more.

Occupancy counting now available for Google Meet on Logitech room hardware

Occupancy counting is now available for Android-based Logitech Gen 2 room hardware (starting with Logitech Rally Board 65) to help measure how meeting rooms are used. This feature brings the same occupancy counting capabilities found on ChromeOS devices to Android-based hardware. Support for occupancy counting will be added next year for earlier Gen 1 devices later as part of an upcoming CollabOS update. | Learn more.

Seamlessly import your emails from any IMAP server to Google Workspace

We’re excited to announce the GA release of a new, simplified way for Workspace admins to import their past emails from any IMAP-based email provider while setting up Google Workspace. | Learn more.

Ground AI prompts in Google Docs on existing sources from Gemini Notebook

We are introducing the ability to use Gemini Notebook as a context source in Google Docs. Building on our Workspace Intelligence foundation, this feature bridges the gap between deep research and content creation by grounding your drafts in a curated knowledge base – all without the need to switch tabs or copy-paste between tools. | Learn more.

Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash now in Vids with improved extension quality, 1080p, and duration control

Users now have access to Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash directly within Google Vids. Omni 1.1 provides higher quality video extension with significant improvements in character and audio consistency. Additionally, Vids now supports generating AI videos and upscaling AI videos to 1080p to be publish ready. | Learn more.

Assign temporary administrator roles in the Google Admin console

Admins can now assign administrator roles to users, groups, or service accounts for a defined period of time. Once the expiration time is reached, the access granted by the role is automatically revoked. | Learn more.

Now in beta: Import and convert your PowerPoint files to client-side encrypted Slides

Eligible customers can now import PowerPoint files as client-side encrypted (CSE) Slides, allowing users to access and edit content. This enables interoperability with Microsoft Office, with this launch PowerPoint files are encrypted on the client before the content is imported to Workspace, and then converted to high-fidelity encrypted Slides. | Learn more.

View up to three time zones in Google Calendar on the web

We’re making it easier to schedule and coordinate meetings across global teams by expanding time zone support in Google Calendar on the web. You can now configure and display up to three time zones—a primary, secondary, and new tertiary time zone—directly on your calendar grid. Previously, users could only display a primary and secondary time zone. | 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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