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Google Workspace Updates

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

  • Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap - December 5, 2025

    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.

    Control whether users can request to join a space in Google Chat

    New Google Chat Access Control Space owners and managers can now disable the "request to join" feature. Previously, users with a link to a restricted space could ask for permission to enter; with this new setting, managers can block these requests entirely, preventing users from asking to join via a link. | Learn more about controlling whether users can request to join a space in Google Chat.

    Educators can now assign public notebooks in Google Classroom

    Expanded NotebookLM Assignments in Google Classroom Educators can now attach public notebooks to assignments, rather than being limited to notebooks they personally create or own. This update allows teachers to easily integrate external shared resources—such as content from the OpenStax partnership—directly into their curriculum. | Learn more about assigning public notebooks in Google Classroom.

    New to Gmail: share emails in Google Chat

    We’re launching a new integration between Gmail and Google Chat designed to improve team collaboration and productivity. With this feature, you can easily share a conversation from your Gmail inbox to a Chat direct message or space. No need to start your chat conversation with, "Did you see the email I forwarded?" or dig through your inbox to find the message being discussed. | Learn more about sharing emails to Google Chat directly from Gmail.

    Choose your preferred caption language for Meet live streams on mobile devices

    Google Meet live stream viewers can select their own preferred language for translated captions on mobile devices. Individual language selection helps overcome language barriers during presentations and events, maximizing each viewer's potential to understand and engage with the content being shared. | Learn more about choosing your preferred caption language for Meet live streams on mobile devices.

    Google Meet translated captions now available in Cantonese

    Cantonese Support for Google Meet Translated Captions Google Meet has added Cantonese to its list of supported languages for translated captions. This allows real-time translation of Cantonese speech into other languages, significantly improving accessibility and collaboration for global teams and educational institutions operating in diverse linguistic environments. | Learn more about Cantonese support for Google Meet translated captions.

    A refreshed user interface for Google Meet hardware touch controllers

    In the coming weeks, we’ll roll out a streamlined user interface for the following Meet Hardware devices: Mimo Vue HD, Mimo Mist, Logitech Tap, Logitech Tap IP, and Lenovo Series One Touch controllers (with Android devices coming soon). This new experience will offer users a more efficient and intuitive way to manage their meetings. | Learn more about a refreshed user interface for Google Meet hardware touch controllers.

    Seamlessly join meetings on Google Meet hardware with “Connect room”

    In the coming weeks, we’ll introduce Connect room, a new way to seamlessly begin your meetings on Google Meet hardware directly from your personal device. This will be available in early preview. Connect room streamlines how you start meetings in a conference room. Instead of manually typing a meeting code, this feature uses ultrasound proximity detection to identify a nearby, available Google Meet hardware device. | Learn more about seamlessly joining meetings on Google Meet hardware with “Connect room”.

    Get quick insights on your Google Drive folders with Gemini

    Earlier this year, we introduced Gemini “nudges” at the top of folders in Google Drive, and we’re now making it even easier to get the context of your folders at a glance. Gemini will now proactively provide insights about the files within a folder, right at the top of the folder view. This makes it easier to quickly understand what’s inside without having to open individual files. | Learn more about getting quick insights on your Google Drive folders with Gemini.

    Now available: Create AI agents to automate work with Google Workspace Studio

    Today we’re introducing Google Workspace Studio: the place to create, manage, and share AI agents to automate work in Workspace—no coding required. | Learn more about creating AI agents to automate work with Google Workspace Studio.

    A more modern interface for viewing PDFs, videos, images, and audio files in Google Drive on the web

    Google Drive is making significant improvements to the viewing experience of third party file formats, such as PDFs, videos, images, and audio files. | Learn more about a more modern interface for viewing PDFs, videos, images, and audio files in Google Drive on the web.

    BYOD on Google Meet on Chrome OS touch controller rooms

    We're launching an integration with Lightware peripheral switchers, so that you and your team can bring your own devices (BYOD) to Google Meet on Chrome OS touch controller rooms. Now, you can plug your laptop into a Meet room with a single USB-C cable and easily use the room's display, speaker, microphone, and camera—along with your laptop—for video conferencing. | Learn more about BYOD on Google Meet for ChromeOS touch controller rooms.

  • BYOD on Google Meet on Chrome OS touch controller rooms

    What’s changing

    We're launching an integration with Lightware peripheral switchers, so that you and your team can bring your own devices (BYOD) to Google Meet on Chrome OS touch controller rooms. Now, you can plug your laptop into a Meet room with a single USB-C cable and easily use the room's display, speaker, microphone, and camera—along with your laptop—for video conferencing. The integration is available with the following peripheral switcher devices:

    • Lightware Taurus UCX 4x2 HC40
    • Lightware Taurus UCX 4x3 HC40

    Additional details

    This offers the following benefits:

    • Seamless transition: Rooms will automatically enter BYOD mode as soon as a user connects their laptop via a certified cable, enabling immediate use of the room's display and high-quality audio and video equipment.
    • Meeting continuity: If a Google Meet call is already in progress, connecting a laptop will not interrupt the call or activate BYOD mode. The same cable for BYOD mode can be used during a Google Meet meeting for sharing your screen to the meeting, ensuring a unified meeting experience.
    • Enhanced admin control: Administrators will gain new visibility within the Google admin console, allowing them to see when BYOD mode is active in a room and preventing erroneous missing peripheral alerts when a third-party device is in control.

    Getting started

    • Admins: Visit the Lightware website for more information.
    • End users:Once the integration is installed, use a USB-C cable to use the room displays, audio devices, and camera.

    Rollout pace

    Availability

    • Available to all Google Meet on Chrome OS devices

    Resources

  • A more modern interface for viewing PDFs, videos, images, and audio files in Google Drive on the web

    What’s changing

    Google Drive is making significant improvements to the viewing experience of third party file formats, such as PDFs, videos, images, and audio files. With this launch, we are modernizing the interface to include:

    • A new left rail for PDFs which will include a table of contents (where applicable) and thumbnails for easier navigation of documents
    • A new file menu
    • A new toolbar and app bar
    • An option to search by transcript when looking at a video

    This modernization will make it easier for Google Workspace users to navigate documents, and will be particularly useful for large documents. 


    New Drive Web Viewing Experience for PDFs

    New Drive Web Viewing Experience for PDFs

    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. You will see it when you open a supported file format in a new tab in Google Drive on the web. Use our Help Center to learn more about how to use Google Drive. 

    Rollout pace

    Availability

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

    Resources

  • Now available: Create AI agents to automate work with Google Workspace Studio

    What’s happening

    Today we’re introducing Google Workspace Studio: the place to create, manage, and share AI agents to automate work in Workspace—no coding required. 


    What you can do with Workspace Studio

    Workspace agents built in Studio offer flexibility and intelligence beyond traditional automation.

    • Automate with agents: Move beyond simple, rule-based automation. Agents can reason through problems and adapt to new information, tackling complex workflows such as intelligent prioritization, support issue triage, smart approvals, content generation, and sentiment analysis.
    • Create agents with AI: Empower every user to build custom agents in minutes. End users can simply describe what they want to automate in plain language (e.g., "every Friday, ping me to update my tracker"), and Gemini will create it.
    • Work smarter with context: Agents can now help with tasks such as “Draft a weekly update for Project Cymbal”, or “What should I do today?”. They are deeply integrated with your Workspace apps (like Gmail, Drive, and Sheets). This allows agents to automatically pull relevant context from your documents, emails, and the web, enabling them to provide smarter, personalized answers and take actions based on your specific situation.
    • Integrate seamlessly: Automate across your entire toolset. Agents can be connected to third-party apps and platforms including Asana, Jira, Mailchimp, and Salesforce.
    • Extend capabilities: Create more powerful and personalized agents for your business or education institution:
      • Call external APIs with webhooks to connect to virtually any internal or external service (e.g., push notifications to Slack/Teams/Discord).
      • Build custom stepsusing Apps Script to integrate with proprietary internal tools, ADK agents, or models via Vertex AI.
    • Share and scale: Agents can be shared with a team for others to copy, similar to sharing a Google Doc. This makes it easy to scale powerful agents across your organization.
    • Use templates:Users can create agents with a library of zero-configuration templates for common use cases that can be shared across your organization. For example:
      • Get a daily summary of unread emails
      • Label emails with action items
      • Get pre-meeting briefs in chat

    Additional details

    Workspace customers on all eligible editions will get promotional access to higher usage limits of Workspace Studio, allowing users to further experiment with these features. Please note that usage may be subject to change to ensure a consistent and high-quality experience for all users. Additional details on per-user usage limits will be provided in a future update in January 2026.

    Users under the age of 18 will not be able to create agents with Gemini AI or use AI-powered steps in agents.

    Getting started

    • Admins: Google Workspace Studio is a core service and will be on or off by default based on your organization’s release preference for new products. It can be enabled or disabled at the OU and group level. Additionally, in the coming weeks, Workspace Studio will be rolling out several new features, including enhancements for external sharing, email sending beyond your primary domain, and robust webhook support. These features will be tightly integrated with your existing trusted domains and allow list configurations, ensuring that admins will have the ability to control, monitor, and audit data flow to meet their organization's specific security and compliance standards. Granular admin controls will also be available to manage these features. More info on default settings for sharing, webhooks, and Gemini features can be found in the Admin Help center.
    • End users: Once available, end users can access this feature by visiting https://studio.workspace.google.com/.

    Rollout pace

    • Rapid Release domains: Admins will see settings appear in the Admin console at the same time their end users get access to Workspace Studio; this rollout will be gradual starting December 3, 2025.
    • Scheduled Release domains:Admin console settings will roll out gradually starting December 3, 2025; end user access to Workspace Studio will roll out gradually starting January 5, 2026.

    Availability

    Available for Google Workspace:

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

    • Google AI Pro for Education
    • Google AI Ultra for Business

    Resources

  • Get quick insights on your Google Drive folders with Gemini

    What’s happening

    Earlier this year, we introduced Gemini “nudges” at the top of folders in Google Drive, and we’re now making it even easier to get the context of your folders at a glance. Gemini will now proactively provide insights about the files within a folder, right at the top of the folder view. This makes it easier to quickly understand what’s inside without having to open individual files. For a more in-depth look, you can click “Explore with Gemini” to get a full summary or ask follow up questions in the Gemini side panel. 

    Get quick insights on your Google Drive folders with Gemini

    This feature is designed to help you save time and stay organized by providing at-a-glance insights into your folders. It is an evolution of the previous version of folder nudges, moving from simple suggestions to proactive, intelligent insights. This feature is currently available in English only.

    Getting started

    • Admins: To enable this feature for your users, you can turn on the default personalization setting for smart features in the Admin console.
    • End users: This feature will be ON by default for end users who have smart features and personalization turned on in their Google Workspace apps. To disable, you can “collapse” the “insights by Gemini” section of a folder. You can also disable this feature by turning off smart features entirely. 

    Rollout pace

    Availability

    Available for Google Workspace:

    • Business Standard and Plus
    • Enterprise Standard and Plus

    Also available to:

    • Google One AI Premium
    • Google AI Pro for Education

  • Seamlessly join meetings on Google Meet hardware with “Connect room”

    What’s changing

    In the coming weeks, we’ll introduce Connect room, a new way to seamlessly begin your meetings on Google Meet hardware directly from your personal device. This will be available in early preview.

    Connect room streamlines how you start meetings in a conference room. Instead of manually typing a meeting code, this feature uses ultrasound proximity detection to identify a nearby, available Google Meet hardware device.

    When you open the Google Meet green room on your laptop, it will automatically detect the room and present a simple option to connect to it. With a single click, the meeting starts on the room hardware, and your laptop transitions into Companion mode, getting you checked-in and ready to collaborate without missing a beat.


    After clicking Connect room, your meeting is started on the room device while your laptop joins in companion mode and checks you into the room.


    Google Meet updates the “Use Companion mode” to “Connect room” when it detects a nearby room to start a meeting.
    This feature simplifies the meeting join experience. In particular, you can now:

    • Take over a booked, but empty conference room: If a conference room is reserved but unoccupied, open your meeting on your laptop, click “Connect room,” and you can immediately start your meeting on the Google Meet hardware.
    • Join and book an available conference room in one click: If you find an available and bookable conference room and wish to use it, simply open your meeting on your laptop, click “Connect room,” and the Google Meet hardware will instantly join the meeting, simultaneously booking the room for your use.
    • Join private meetings more easily: Simply open a meeting invite on your device, click “Connect room,” and instantly join the meeting directly on Google Meet hardware.
    • Join a meeting not listed on the conference room calendar: If you were sent a Google Meet invitation in chat or email, open your meeting on your laptop, click “Connect room,” and you can immediately start your meeting on the Google Meet hardware.

    Additional details

    Users on the Rapid Release track will start seeing this feature for devices enrolled in our Early Preview Rooms (EPR) program starting on December 2, 2025. We’ll share more details on the Workspace Updates blog when we begin a broader rollout.

    Getting started

    • Admins: To preview this feature, your domain must be on the Rapid Release track and have devices enrolled in our EPR program. In addition, this feature relies on Google Meet hardware’s Proximity Detection device setting, which is ON by default. For this feature to work, you must enable Proximity Detection on your fleet's devices. In-room booking must also be enabled for Connect room to automatically book the room when joining the call.
    • End users: This feature will be ON by default for users on the Rapid Release track entering a room with enabled hardware. To use the feature, ensure your laptop microphone is selected in the greenroom, then simply click "Connect room" when the prompt appears. Visit the Help Center to learn more.

    Rollout pace

    Availability

    • Available to all Google Workspace customers with Google Meet hardware devices

    Resources

  • A refreshed user interface for Google Meet hardware touch controllers

    What’s changing

    In the coming weeks, we’ll roll out a streamlined user interface for the following Meet Hardware devices: Mimo Vue HD, Mimo Mist, Logitech Tap, Logitech Tap IP, and Lenovo Series One Touch controllers (with Android devices coming soon). This new experience will offer users a more efficient and intuitive way to manage their meetings. It includes:

    1.Simplified access to key controls: The controls you use most frequently inside a meeting, like mute and hand raise, are now more prominent and easily accessible. This means less time spent searching for features and more time focusing on your meeting.

    2. Intuitively organized features:

    • In-meeting experience: If you need to access more advanced features, like camera controls or the meeting layout, you can now find them conveniently under the “More actions” menu. This keeps the main interface clean and uncluttered while ensuring less frequently used features are still accessible when you need them.
    • Pre-call experience: A refreshed pre-call meeting design prominently features the option to enter a meeting code or nickname, and includes a clear drop-down menu for joining Webex or Zoom meetings, streamlining your connection process.

    3. A familiar interface: The touch controller UI will look and feel more similar to the Google Meet UI on the web, making your transition more intuitive.




    New touch controller in-meeting experience

    Getting started

    • Admins: The new experience will be ON by default. There is no admin control for this feature.
    • End users: This new experience will be ON by default for eligible Meet Hardware devices in your meeting rooms.

    Rollout pace

    Availability

    • Available to all Google Workspace customers with Google Meet hardware devices

    Resources

  • Google Meet translated captions now available in Cantonese

    What’s happening

    We are enhancing the translated captions feature in Google Meet by adding support for Cantonese. This update makes it easier for users to communicate and collaborate across different languages.

    For your end users, this means that if a meeting attendee is speaking in Cantonese, or another supported language, Meet can now display real-time translated captions to the language of their choice. This is particularly helpful in large, global organizations or educational institutions where participants may speak different primary languages. Adding Cantonese support ensures smoother communication, better meeting accessibility, and more inclusive participation for teams working in diverse linguistic environments.

    This feature allows teams to connect and collaborate more easily, ensuring all voices are heard and understood regardless of location or native language.


    Getting started

    Rollout pace

    Availability

    This feature is available for the following Google Workspace editions:

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

    Resources

  • Choose your preferred caption language for Meet live streams on mobile devices

    What’s changing

    Google Meet live stream viewers can select their own preferred language for translated captions on mobile devices. Individual language selection helps overcome language barriers during presentations and events, maximizing each viewer's potential to understand and engage with the content being shared.

    Previously, Meet live streams were broadcast to mobile devices with a single target language set for captions, selected by the host when starting the live stream. Now, viewers independently select their own preferred language for translated captions and can also change this setting while watching the live stream.


    Choose your preferred caption language for Meet live streams on mobile devices 

    Getting started

    • Admins:There is no admin control for this feature.
    • End users: End users can turn translated captions on or off and select their preferred language. Visit the Help Center to learn more about translated captions.

    Rollout pace

    Availability

    • All Google Workspace customers can select their preferred language for captions. Only users with eligible licenses can host live streams.

    Resources

  • New to Gmail: share emails in Google Chat

    What’s changing

    We’re launching a new integration between Gmail and Google Chat designed to improve team collaboration and productivity. With this feature, you can easily share a conversation from your Gmail inbox to a Chat direct message or space. No need to start your chat conversation with, "Did you see the email I forwarded?" or dig through your inbox to find the message being discussed.

    Starting from a Gmail thread, you can initiate a chat with the existing email recipients, a subset, or a new group. The email is automatically forwarded and recipients can open it directly from a link in Chat.

    This enables you to switch to Chat for active discussion while preserving the connection to the original message. Two-way linking helps ensure that everyone has the full context they need for a productive discussion and reduces the need to jump between tabs.

    This feature is helpful in common scenarios such as:

    • Resolving an issue in real time instead of going back and forth over email
    • Chatting about an email with a subset of the original group before responding
    • Discussing a customer email with coworkers
    • Signal boosting an announcement by company leadership 
    • Sharing meetings notes and action items

    Sharing an email in Google Chat
    Sharing an email in Google Chat

    Getting started

    • Admins:There is no admin control for this feature. Organizations must have both Gmail and Chat enabled for the feature to appear.
    • End users: This feature will be on by default for users who have Chat enabled in Gmail, available on desktop at launch and on mobile soon (currently available in limited testing on mobile for selected users). Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to share in Chat from Gmail.

    Rollout pace

    Availability

    Available for Google Workspace:

    • Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
    • Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
    • Frontline Starter, Standard, Plus
    • Nonprofits
    We plan to bring this feature to Education customers in the coming months. Please stay tuned to the Workspace Updates blog for an update on availability.

    Resources