Google Workspace Changes

New 'Locked' feature for Google Groups to prevent unauthorized changes.

Google Groups now offers a 'Locked' feature, enabling administrators to restrict modifications to group attributes such as name, email address, and memberships. This is particularly beneficial for organizations synchronizing groups from external identity systems like Entra ID, ensuring consistency and preventing discrepancies. The 'Locked' status helps maintain data integrity by limiting who can make critical changes within Google Workspace, while not affecting access or content moderation settings. Super Admins, Group Admins, and custom roles with specific privileges can manage this feature.

Studio lighting in Google Meet, powered by Gemini, is now accessible on all devices.

Google Meet's studio lighting feature, which uses machine learning and Gemini to simulate studio-quality lighting by adjusting light position and brightness in video feeds, is now available across all devices. The rollout to Rapid and Scheduled Release domains is complete. It is available for Google Workspace Business Standard and Plus, and Enterprise Standard and Plus.

Automated meeting recordings, transcripts, and "Take notes for me" in Google Meet now support seven additional languages.

Google Meet's automated meeting recording, transcript generation, and "Take notes for me" features, previously only in English, now support French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. Meeting artifacts will automatically be generated in the meeting host’s supported language. This feature is rolling out now to Rapid and Scheduled Release domains, with availability varying by Google Workspace edition.

Google Drive log events in the security investigation tool now include search-related information.

Drive log events in the security investigation tool have been expanded to include search events. This new information encompasses resources returned from a search, the user's query, and more, allowing admins to assess normal vs. anomalous search behavior that might indicate data exfiltration. This data can also be queried via API. The rollout to Rapid and Scheduled Release domains is complete, and it is available across various Google Workspace editions.

Google Drive now supports opening Microsoft Office files with embedded PDFs.

Users can now seamlessly open Microsoft Office files containing embedded PDFs directly within Google Drive, ensuring a smoother experience when working with these document types. This feature is available to all Google Workspace customers, Google Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.

Imagen 4 is now available for image generation in Google Docs, Slides, and Vids, supporting multiple languages.

Users can now leverage Imagen 4, Google's highest quality image generation model, within Google Docs, Slides, and Vids. This update provides outstanding text rendering, improved prompt adherence, higher overall image quality, and multilingual prompt support in over 20 languages. It's available to Google Workspace Business and Enterprise users with access to Gemini in Docs and Slides, and users with access to Gemini in Vids.

Imagen 4 for image generation in Google Docs, Slides, and Vids with multilingual support.

Users can now leverage Imagen 4, Google's highest quality image generation model, within Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Vids. This update provides outstanding text rendering, improved prompt adherence, higher overall image quality across all styles, and supports multilingual prompts in over 20 languages, enhancing creative capabilities across these applications.

Gmail search results are now sorted by relevance using AI, rather than chronologically.

Gmail's search feature is enhanced with AI to display the most relevant results at the top. This update considers factors like recency, most-clicked emails, and frequent contacts, moving beyond just chronological order based on keywords. Users can also switch between "most relevant" and "most recent" results. This rollout is complete for both Rapid and Scheduled Release domains, and is available to Google Workspace customers, Google Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.

Gemini now supports scheduled actions for personalized updates, reminders, and routine tasks.

Gemini now includes a scheduled actions feature, enabling users to create personalized updates, set reminders, or complete routine tasks in a chat or based on existing prompts. These actions can be set to various frequencies (single, daily, weekly) and used for tasks like daily summaries of calendars/to-do lists, news briefings, competitive landscape monitoring, or vocabulary builders. The rollout to Rapid and Scheduled Release domains is complete, available with a qualifying edition of Google Workspace for Gemini on the web and mobile and in all supported languages for users 18+.

Imagen 4 is now available in Google Docs, Slides, and Vids for image generation with multilingual support.

Users can now leverage Imagen 4, Google's highest quality image generation model, within Google Docs, Slides, and Vids. This update provides outstanding text rendering, improved prompt adherence, higher overall image quality across various styles, and supports multilingual prompts in over 20 languages.

Users can now upload video files to the Gemini mobile app to provide context for prompts.

Google Workspace users can now upload videos stored on their mobile devices to the Gemini mobile app. This allows users to provide more context to their prompts, such as asking Gemini to summarize the video or specific questions about its content. The rollout to Rapid and Scheduled Release domains is complete, and it's available to all Google Workspace users with access to the Gemini app.

More granular controls for multi-party approvals for sensitive admin actions.

Google is introducing more granular controls for multi-party approvals (MPA) for sensitive admin actions. This enhancement allows admins to select which specific settings require MPA, choose separate MPA settings for actions supported via API and the admin console, and delegate specific admins to approve MPA actions using a new multi-party approval role. This feature adds an extra layer of security by ensuring sensitive actions are not implemented in a silo and helps prevent unauthorized or accidental changes.

Whisk, a new AI image and video generation tool, helps creatives explore ideas using text/image prompts and turn images into 8-second videos with Whisk Animate.

Whisk, a new AI image and video generation tool, is now available through Google AI Ultra for Business. It assists creatives in quickly exploring and visualizing new ideas by using both text and image prompts. A key feature, Whisk Animate, allows users to transform still images into 8-second videos leveraging Veo 2, providing a dynamic way to bring concepts to life.

Introduction of Whisk, a new AI image and video generation tool for exploring and visualizing ideas.

Whisk is a new AI image and video generation tool made available through the Google AI Ultra for Business add-on. It assists creatives in quickly exploring and visualizing new ideas by using both text and image prompts. A notable feature is Whisk Animate, which allows users to transform static images into dynamic 8-second videos, utilizing Veo 2 for enhanced visual output.

Project Mariner (US only research prototype) explores streamlined human-agent interaction, allowing AI agents to complete time-consuming tasks concurrently.

Project Mariner, currently a US-only research prototype, is included with Google AI Ultra for Business to explore the future of streamlined human-agent interaction. This tool allows users to assign AI agents to complete time-consuming tasks such as research and data entry concurrently. This capability enables users to achieve more by offloading background tasks to AI agents, freeing up their time for other activities.