Google Workspace Changes

Gemini Notebook now lets users produce Short Video Overviews—approximately 60-second videos that blend narrative explanations with educational animations—in over 80 languages. These shareable videos break down intricate formulas, diagrams, and scientific ideas into digestible content for easier learning.

Gemini Notebook's exam preparation features have been expanded to include short answer, multiple choice, and fill-in-the-blank quiz formats. Users can now converse with their notebook about their latest quiz and flashcard performance to identify focus areas, and they can customize quizzes and flashcards by adding or editing questions to suit their study needs.

Gemini Notebook now offers interactive learning overviews accessible under the Reports section. These overviews integrate summaries with studio-generated outputs such as quizzes, flashcards, and mind maps, helping users stay focused during study sessions by providing varied, engaging review formats.

Users aged 18 and over can engage in real-time voice conversations with their Gemini Notebook via the mobile app on Android and iOS, available in almost 100 languages. Responses are grounded in the user's own sources, providing step-by-step guidance, answering questions, and allowing interruptions at any point.

The Gemini Notebook mobile app now includes an audio recorder available on Android and iOS, enabling users to record lectures or personal thoughts while studying. Recordings are saved as notes directly alongside the relevant source material, facilitating easy citation and continued editing.

The update adds four new capabilities to Workspace Studio flows: custom starters that trigger flows from external applications, custom steps built with Apps Script for tailored logic, beta third‑party integrations with services such as Asana, Confluence, HubSpot, Jira, Mailchimp, QuickBooks, Salesforce, and Slack, and webhook steps to send HTTP requests to external endpoints. All features are backed by granular enterprise security controls and are rolling out to Rapid and Scheduled Release domains starting in September 2026.

Starting September 14, 2026, the Google Meet homepage on the web displays conference room and physical meeting location details directly on upcoming meeting cards. For meetings with multiple rooms, the system prioritizes the room in the user's working location (set in Google Calendar) and highlights it. Clicking a room opens wayfinding or campus maps, while offsite addresses open Google Maps for turn‑by‑turn directions. Location details are prominently shown for meetings happening now or starting soon (<10 minutes) and appear on hover for later meetings, with an overflow button for multiple locations. No admin or end‑user settings are required; the feature uses existing building and room resources from the Admin console. Rollout is gradual over up to 15 days, beginning September 14 for Rapid Release domains and September 28 for Scheduled Release domains, and is available to all Google Workspace customers and Workspace Individual subscribers.

Google Meet hardware adds a manual connection method via a 5‑character room code shown on the hardware screen. Users see a 'Connect with room code' button on the pre‑call screen, allowing them to input the code when ultrasound‑based proximity detection is unavailable or disabled. The feature is enabled by default for both Rapid and Scheduled release domains, with a gradual rollout starting September 15, 2026 (up to 15 days for full visibility), and admins can toggle it at the device level.

Starting September 15, 2026, Google is expanding AI Overviews in Gmail search to all global users on paid Workspace plans whose Gmail language is set to English. The feature, which uses Gemini to provide concise summaries and answers to natural language queries, was previously limited to US users. Admins need Gemini for Workspace in Gmail and Workspace Intelligence access enabled; end users must have smart features turned on. Rollout began on September 3 for Rapid Release domains (gradual over up to 15 days) and will start September 21 for Scheduled Release domains (full rollout within 1–3 days). Personal Google Accounts also see a gradual rollout from September 3.

Starting September 15, 2026, Gemini for Google Workspace users can interact with popular third‑party tools such as Asana, Atlassian Rovo, HubSpot, Intuit Mailchimp, Intuit QuickBooks, Monday.com, and Salesforce directly from the Gemini side panel in Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Chat. Powered by Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations, the feature lets users retrieve and act on information without switching tabs or downloading files. Admins can enable or disable connectors via the Admin console, and the rollout is available immediately for both Rapid and Scheduled Release tracks across Business, Enterprise, Consumer, Education, and other editions.

The new capability lets administrators create a single rule in the Admin console that evaluates both data sensitivity (using classification labels or DLP conditions) and audience (via trust rules criteria such as organizational units, groups, or domains). It supports three audience restriction options: block sharing with all external users, allowlist sharing only with specific users, or denylist sharing with specific users while permitting sharing with everyone else. The feature rolls out gradually over up to 15 days starting September 14, 2026 for both Rapid and Scheduled Release domains, and is available for Enterprise Standard/Plus, Education Fundamentals/Standard/Plus, Enterprise Essentials, and Frontline Standard/Plus editions.

The new feature allows admins to connect their Microsoft business account using global admin credentials, optionally exclude users or data types, and automatically import up to 10 Microsoft users along with their emails, OneDrive files, calendar events, contacts and tasks into Google Workspace. The import runs in the background after domain verification and MX activation, and is available now for both Rapid and Scheduled Release domains.

Google has launched the Gemini desktop app for Windows 10 and 11, enabling users to access Gemini directly from their desktop. The app can be summoned with Alt+Space for quick tasks like fact-checking or brainstorming, can draft project summaries using data from Gmail and Drive, and can generate custom images via Nano Banana. Admins have the app enabled by default where Gemini is turned on, and end users can download it from gemini.google/desktop.

Google Sheets has increased its cell limit from up to 10 million cells to up to 20 million cells, applicable to new, existing, and imported spreadsheets, including those from Excel (.xlsx) or CSV files. The change is rolling out gradually over up to 15 days for Rapid Release domains starting September 10, 2026, and for Scheduled Release domains starting September 28, 2026. No admin or end-user settings are required. A future increase to the file byte size limit for imported spreadsheets is also planned.