Google Workspace Changes

Meet Quality Tool now shows viewers with 'Testing peering policy'.

The Meet Quality Tool's eCDN table will now represent viewers utilizing the 'Testing peering policy'. Previously, this table only displayed viewers per configured network when the 'Custom Rules' peering policy was in use, improving visibility for administrators using the testing policy.

Google Meet eCDN's 'Random peering policy' renamed to 'Testing peering policy'.

The 'Random peering policy' in Google Meet eCDN has been renamed to 'Testing peering policy'. This policy is intended primarily for testing purposes and is not designed for full performance in production environments.

Google Meet eCDN now supports multiple private IP addresses for matching.

Google Meet eCDN clients can now detect and use all private IP addresses configured on a device's interfaces for matching against custom rules. Previously, only a single IP (prioritizing IPv4) was used. This ensures that the first rule matching any detected private IP addresses will be applied.

Improvements to Google Meet eCDN custom rules for overlapping IP ranges.

Google Meet eCDN is updating how 'Custom Rules' peering policy works, specifically for overlapping IP ranges. The priority for blocking changes is being removed to simplify match determination, where the first matching rule (top-to-bottom) will be applied. This change affects administrators who have defined overlapping IP ranges in their custom rules.

Add lists and code blocks to Google Chat app cards.

Developers can now enrich Google Chat app cards with ordered, unordered, and nested lists, as well as code blocks. These features are crucial for displaying structured data, programming examples, and organizing complex details, significantly enhancing the readability and comprehension of information for users.

Google Chat apps now support Markdown for text formatting.

Google Chat apps now offer new Markdown support for text formatting, simplifying the card-building process for developers. This is particularly beneficial for AI agents, as standard outputs from many Large Language Models (LLMs) are in markdown, eliminating the need for manual conversion to HTML.

New carousel widget for more engaging Google Chat apps.

Developers can now create more engaging Google Chat apps using a new carousel widget. This widget enables the display of complex and organized information in a horizontally scrollable and compact format, allowing for product listings, multiple data points, or various options within a single card, thereby enhancing the user experience.

Google Vids upgraded with Nano Banana image editing model and custom prompt image editing.

Google Vids has been upgraded to the latest image editing model, Nano Banana, offering improved quality for image editing within videos. Users now have the option to edit images using custom prompts, allowing them to create and insert custom-generated images into their videos.

Google Slides upgraded with Nano Banana image editing model and custom prompt image editing.

Google Slides has been upgraded to the latest image editing model, Nano Banana, bringing improved quality to image editing. Additionally, users can now edit images using custom prompts, such as "Place this product in a New York subway station," and then add the generated image to their slides.

Gemini for Google Workspace capabilities extended to Google Drive mobile apps on Android and iOS.

Users can now collaborate with Gemini within the Google Drive mobile applications on Android and iOS. This integration allows users to ask questions about their files and folders, summarize long documents or entire folders, discuss topics requiring information synthesis from multiple files, and retrieve quick facts without opening relevant documents, mirroring the functionality available on Drive web.

Introduction of 'owner' role in Google Chat spaces, alongside existing manager and member roles, for more flexible permission management.

Google Chat spaces are introducing a new 'owner' role, in addition to the existing managers and members. This change aims to facilitate easier sharing of space management tasks among colleagues. Existing space managers will automatically become owners, retaining full control. A new 'manager' role will have most owner permissions but cannot delete the space or upgrade users to owners. The 'member' role remains unchanged. Both owners and managers will be able to control permissions within space settings, such as who can use '@all', add apps, or manage chat history.

Increased limit for conditional notifications in Google Sheets to 20.

Google Sheets now allows users to set up to 20 conditional notifications per spreadsheet, significantly increasing the previous limit of 5. This enhancement provides greater flexibility for users to create detailed notification rules that trigger alerts based on specific changes within their spreadsheet data, improving data monitoring and responsiveness.

Educators can now generate custom stories using Gemini with Read Along in Google Classroom.

Educators can leverage Gemini within Read Along in Google Classroom to create customized stories for students. This feature allows for the generation of content tailored to specific student needs, supporting differentiated instruction and extending Read Along's utility to older students by adjusting reading levels for various topics.

Existing reporting rules convert to activity rules for Business and Education Fundamentals customers, allowing notification frequency configuration and descriptive alerts.

For Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, and Enterprise Essentials customers, all existing reporting rules will automatically be converted to activity rules. Admins will now have the ability to configure notification frequencies and access more descriptive alerts. However, it's important to note that applying thresholds and actions to rules will not be available for these specific Workspace editions. This change aims to provide a more streamlined workflow for managing alerts.

Reporting rules are combined with activity rules for Enterprise and Education Plus customers, adding threshold-less rules and a new event-based threshold mode.

For Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Education Plus, Cloud Identity Premium, Chrome Enterprise Premium, and Enterprise Standard customers, reporting rules are now combined with activity rules. This change allows admins to create rules without thresholds and introduces a new threshold mode that triggers a rule every time a relevant event occurs. This aims to simplify the admin experience for creating rules and monitoring alerts within the Admin console.