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

Meet now automatically opens picture-in-picture when screen sharing

Google Meet now supports automatically opening picture-in-picture when starting a screen share. This will allow you to see your audience while focusing on your presentation content. This feature is an enhancement to picture-in-picture opening automatically when you switch tabs. | Learn more about automatic picture-in-picture in Meet when screen sharing.

Invite external guests to Google Meet live streams or limit access for targeted internal live streaming

Additional access controls for Google Meet will now let hosts decide who can view their live streams. Live streams can now reach a wider audience with added flexibility for events like town halls, webinars, and large presentations. This allows for mixed internal/external audiences and better granularity for hosting restricted internal broadcasts. | Learn more about inviting external guests to Google Meet live streams or limiting access for targeted internal live streaming.

Call queuing now available for select Google Voice plans

Currently, when all members of a ring group are busy, incoming calls are often sent to voicemail or, in some cases, disconnected by the carrier. With this update, when a caller dials a ring group, they will be automatically placed on hold in a queue to wait for the next available person. | Learn more about call queuing for select Google Voice plans.

Implement automated compliance recording and transcripts for selected Google Meet users

In order to help organizations, particularly those in the financial services industry, meet strict regulatory archiving requirements, today we are introducing Google Meet Compliance Recording, a new feature that can be enabled by administrators to automatically record meetings and capture transcripts for specific users or groups requiring regulatory monitoring by a registered organization. | Learn more about implementing automated compliance recording and transcripts for selected Google Meet users.

Protect sensitive Google Vault actions with multi-party approvals

We are extending multi-party approvals (MPA) to Google Vault. Last year, we launched MPA to protect customers from malicious actors taking sensitive admin actions by requiring that one admin must approve certain actions initiated by another. | Learn more about protecting sensitive Google Vault actions with multi-party approvals.

Gmail data classification update: include header or footer message

Earlier this year, data classification labels for Gmail became generally available. Admins can use this feature to classify and audit email content according to organizational guidelines (“Sensitive,” “Confidential,” etc.) and apply policies, such as data loss prevention (DLP) rules, to protect sensitive information in email messages. | Learn more about the Gmail data classification update for header and footer messages.

A new web address for Google Chat

We’re launching a faster, more reliable Google Chat experience for web users. Chat will now be served from chat.google.com instead of mail.google.com/chat. Users, however, can continue to use existing mail.google.com/chat bookmarks and links. This change will reduce loading time when opening the app and does not change the Chat user interface. | Learn more about a new web address for Google Chat.

Schedule messages to be sent at a later time in Google Chat

Today we are launching a new feature to enable users to schedule messages in Google Chat to be sent at a later time or date. This  highly requested feature is part of our commitment to enable more productive and seamless communication for our users. | Learn more about scheduling messages to be sent at a later time in Google Chat.

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What’s changing

Today we are launching a new feature to enable users to schedule messages in Google Chat to be sent at a later time or date. This  highly requested feature is part of our commitment to enable more productive and seamless communication for our users.

By scheduling messages, Chat users can be respectful of colleagues time and avoid sending messages late at night or early in the morning when recipients may be in a different time zone or unavailable.

  • When composing a message in a Chat conversation, by clicking the down arrow next to the compose bar, users can select a time to send the message up to 120 days in the future.
  • If a user has a scheduled message in a conversation, a banner will appear above the compose box. Clicking this banner or the new Drafts shortcut in the left panel will open a dedicated area to manage all scheduled messages, where users can edit, reschedule, or cancel them.
  • The Draft shortcut is only available when there are scheduled messages.
Clicking on the down arrow next to the Sent button brings up the Schedule send menu

Clicking on the down arrow next to the Sent button brings up the Schedule send menu

New Drafts shortcut to edit, reschedule, send, and delete your scheduled messages

New Drafts shortcut to edit, reschedule, send, and delete your scheduled messages

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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What’s happening

We’re launching a faster, more reliable Google Chat experience for web users. Chat will now be served from chat.google.com instead of mail.google.com/chat. Users, however, can continue to use existing mail.google.com/chat bookmarks and links. This change will reduce loading time when opening the app and does not change the Chat user interface.

Getting started

  • Admins and developers: If you've created an extension that works with Chat, you'll need to make sure it's compatible with the new chat.google.com web address. Please update your extension to ensure it can find and interact with Chat in its new home.
  • End users: If you’re using Chrome extensions to enhance Chat, they may need to be updated by their creators to function correctly after the move to chat.google.com. If you notice an extension isn't working as expected, check if an update is available on the Chrome Web Store.
  • Admins: If you've blocked Chat access for your org users using allowlist or block URLs in Chrome (or other browsers), then you will need to add the chat.google.com domain as well. If you've configured website-specific policies for permissions and behaviors (such as allowing or denying access to camera, microphone, notifications, etc.) for Chat, you will need to update these policies to include chat.google.com. Finally, if you've force installed the Chat desktop app (aka Chat PWA) for your organization through a force-install list, you will need to include chat.google.com in this list. Note that blocking chat.google.com will break your ability to use Chat within Gmail and Google Meet.

Rollout pace

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on December 11, 2025
  • Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting around January 7, 2025

Availability

  • Impacts all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts
Read More

What’s changing

Earlier this year, data classification labels for Gmail became generally available. Admins can use this feature to classify and audit email content according to organizational guidelines (“Sensitive,” “Confidential,” etc.) and apply policies, such as data loss prevention (DLP) rules, to protect sensitive information in email messages.

We have expanded this functionality to include the ability to create a DLP rule that adds a header or footer message to email messages. Critically, header and footer messages will be shown to users outside of your domain, which helps ensure external users are aware of the sensitivity of the message and any handling requirements. DLP rules are applied to outbound messages from your domain based on how you have configured the rule scope and conditions. As a reminder, the actual classification label is only visible to recipients in your domain.

Admins can customize the information shown in the header or footer message, including links to further information on handling information. Headers and footers are visible on all device types, both within and outside of your domain.

Selecting “Add footer message” when creating a rule

Selecting “Add footer message” when creating a rule

Once the email is sent, the banner will appear in the body of the email.

Once the email is sent, the banner will appear in the body of the email

For more information on data classification labels for Gmail, please refer to our previous announcement.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Data loss prevention rules with labels as a condition or labels as an action are available to:

  • Enterprise Standard and Plus
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade
  • Frontline Standard and Plus
  • Cloud Identity Premium (with Workspace plan that includes Gmail)

Resources

Read More

What’s changing

We are extending multi-party approvals (MPA) to Google Vault. Last year, we launched MPA to protect customers from malicious actors taking sensitive admin actions by requiring that one admin must approve certain actions initiated by another.

Going forward, admins can configure multi-party approvals for the following sensitive Google Vault actions:

  • Google Vault: create export: Requiring approval before a search query can be exported.
When enabled, if an admin attempts to perform these actions in the Vault interface, they will see a "Multi-party approval required" prompt. The action will not be executed until a separate, authorized administrator reviews and approves the request within the Admin console.


Vault admins have access to highly sensitive actions, including the ability to search and export specific sensitive user data or large amounts of data across an entire domain.

Multi-party approval adds an extra layer of security for these sensitive actions by ensuring no sensitive action happens in a silo and, most importantly, helps prevent unauthorized or accidental changes from being made. This dual-authorization mechanism significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized or malicious actions, such as a bad actor attempting to exfiltrate confidential information or perform unapproved data deletions.

Additional details

  • Request workflow: Once a request is submitted, approvers (super admins or delegated admins with the multi-party approval role) receive an email notification.
  • Expiration: Requests expire after three days if not approved.
  • Granular control: Admins can choose to enable MPA specifically for Vault actions without enforcing it on other settings, or vice versa, via the Multi-party approval settings page.
  • Delegation: Super admins can delegate the responsibility of approving these requests to other leaders using the "Multi-party approval" system role.
  • API: Multi-party approval will not be required for exports triggered via the API and should not impact downstream automation via the API.

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature is available for eligible Workspace customers with two or more super admin accounts. Multi-party approval for Vault exports is OFF by default and can be turned on in the Admin console. Visit the Help Center to learn more.

Rollout pace

Availability

Available to Google Workspace

  • Enterprise Standard and Plus
  • Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Education Standard and Plus

Resources

Read More

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