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

Presenters will now be able to share stereo sound when presenting content with stereo audio in Google Meet. During virtual meetings, presenters often share content with audio, such as music before a meeting starts, videos for review or discussion during the meeting, and more. Now, if the audio is originally in stereo (with separate left and right audio channels), the stereo sound will apply to the audio presented via Meet as well. 

This can help make a more natural and immersive listening experience, improving the quality of the sound for all attendees. 

Additional details:

  • Only users on the web will be able to send stereo audio.
  • Only Chrome and Firefox browsers will be able to receive stereo audio.

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 when applicable content is shared via screen sharing. Visit the Help Center to learn more about presenting in Google Meet. 

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 changing

We are introducing Silent Test mode, a new offering that lets you run a large-scale eCDN (Enterprise Content Delivery Network) test with your users and devices, across your entire network, while minimizing any risk of impacting the viewer experience.

Google Meet eCDN provides peer-assisted media delivery for Meet live streams, saving up to 95% of the original bandwidth. To optimize bandwidth savings, administrators may want to fine-tune peering policies and custom rules to match their network topology. Silent Test is a risk-minimizing mode that helps admins validate those configurations by running large-scale eCDN tests with real user profiles and devices across large or global networks.

When Silent Test mode is turned on, Meet eCDN will run in a full simulation mode during large meetings and live streams. Live stream clients collect and report real-world data and statistics on how peer-based delivery through eCDN would perform, while showing viewers media that is directly served from Google's servers. This allows admins to quickly and with low risk test various configuration options.

In Silent Test mode clients will:

  • Stream media directly from Google's servers and use it for viewer playback
  • Discover and connect to peers to form Peering Groups
  • Operate in their client role (Root, Leaf or Branch) in a full P2P topology
  • Exchange actual media for simulation purposes and to generate real-world network load
  • Report back any connectivity bandwidth issues between peers
  • Collect all statistics in Meet Quality Tool and clearly mark metrics from Silent Tests

Advanced operation

In addition to simulating eCDN for regular live streams administrators can now also perform large-scale network tests by scheduling* workload scripts on users' devices to run transparently in the background. Since no live stream needs to be arranged for actual users to join, those tests can run as often as needed or use non-peak hours. This is a powerful way for admins to faster validate iterative changes. 

*Using an existing endpoint management system that allows remote script execution.

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be OFF by default. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to turn on Silent Test Mode. Complete the initial setup for Meet eCDN before turning on Silent Test mode. Learn more about how to set up Meet eCDN.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature.
Accelerate validation of Google Meet eCDN configuration at scale with Silent Test Mode

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for Google Workspace editions that allow live streams to be hosted:

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

Resources

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A summary of announcements from the last week:

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog over the last week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

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
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