Google Workspace Changes

Improved Workday Google Chat app for managing time off, including requests, views, cancellations, and checking balances/holidays.

The Workday Google Chat app has been updated to provide a more streamlined experience for managing time off. This includes a single, improved flow that allows users to easily request, view, or cancel their time off requests. Additionally, the update introduces quick commands that enable users to check their time off balances and review company holidays directly within the Google Chat application, enhancing efficiency and user convenience for Workday users.

Added drill down functionality to Connected Sheets pivot tables for granular data access.

Users can now drill down into Connected Sheets pivot tables to immediately access granular data. By double-clicking a pivot table cell or using the "Show details" menu option, users can instantly create a pre-configured extract focused on the specific records contributing to the summary metric.

Doubled row capacity for Connected Sheets pivot tables backed by BigQuery.

The row capacity for pivot tables backed by BigQuery in Connected Sheets has been doubled from 100,000 to 200,000 rows. This enhancement allows users to analyze substantially larger BigQuery datasets within a single pivot table in Google Sheets.

Enhanced Admin audit log events with improved schema and event modeling for better clarity and detail.

Google is updating the schema and event modeling for several Admin audit log events, particularly those related to account security, Gmail, and Drive settings, as well as other admin-defined setting audit logs. These enhancements are designed to make the logs more comprehensible, detailed, and accurate. The changes include modifications to event names, event types, and the overall volume of the affected log events. While some legacy events may become redundant, both new and old events will remain available during the transition period to allow administrators to adjust their existing queries, alerts, and reports. This update significantly improves the depth of analysis possible for cybersecurity incident investigation and data usage understanding.

Gemini app now allows users to generate slide presentations from text prompts or uploaded sources, which can then be exported to Google Slides.

The Gemini app is introducing a new feature that enables users to create slide presentations through its Canvas tool. Users can provide a text prompt or upload a source document, and Gemini will generate a presentation complete with a theme and relevant images. Once generated, these presentations can be exported directly to Google Slides for further refinement and collaboration. This feature is designed to assist professionals, educators, students, and non-profits in quickly drafting presentations for various purposes, such as pitch decks, lesson plans, project outlines, or board meeting summaries.

Improved LaTeX rendering and PDF export capabilities are now available in the Gemini app.

The Gemini app now includes enhanced LaTeX rendering and PDF export functionalities, making it easier for users to create high-quality documents with complex formatting. This update simplifies the process of working with LaTeX by offering in-app PDF generation, direct editing of LaTeX formulas within Canvas documents, and the ability to copy unrendered LaTeX code. This makes Gemini a more powerful tool for professionals and students in academic, scientific, and technical fields.

Google Meet introduces waiting rooms for hosts to control participant entry and manage meetings more effectively.

Google Meet is introducing a new waiting room feature that provides hosts and co-hosts with greater control over meeting entry. This feature allows participants to join a waiting room before entering the main call, enabling hosts to admit or deny entry, send one-way announcements, and even move existing participants back to the waiting room. This is designed to prevent interruptions, allow hosts to prepare, and ensure smoother, more productive discussions, especially useful for scenarios like board meetings or interviews.

Ask Gemini in Google Meet is rolling out to Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus domains, providing AI assistance for meeting summaries, key takeaways, and catching up on discussions.

The 'Ask Gemini in Meet' feature is now rolling out to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus domains. This update brings the power of Gemini directly into Google Meet, acting as a personal assistant to enhance meeting productivity. Users can leverage Ask Gemini to summarize ongoing discussions, get recaps of what was said, identify key takeaways, decisions, and action items, and even catch up on missed content if they joined late and Gemini-powered note-taking was enabled. Interactions with Ask Gemini are private to the user, and it generates answers by referring to meeting captions, user-permitted Google Workspace resources, and public web content. Caption data is not stored post-meeting, and it does not generate meeting recordings or transcripts. Currently, only English meetings are supported, with more languages to follow. Ask Gemini in Meet is on by default but can be managed by meeting hosts and admins.

Educators can convert rubrics from files in Google Classroom with Gemini's help.

Educators can now use Gemini to quickly convert existing rubrics from Google Drive or local files for use in Google Classroom assignments. This new feature allows educators to select 'Convert from file' within the Rubric menu during assignment creation, automating the process of importing rubrics from various file types directly into Google Classroom, eliminating manual data entry. This feature is part of Gemini in Google Classroom and is available for education users over 18 in English.

Admins can now control and manage AI credit overages for Google AI Ultra for Business users in Gemini for Google Workspace.

Google Workspace administrators now have enhanced control over AI credit consumption for users with a Google AI Ultra for Business license within Gemini for Google Workspace. This update allows admins to enable users to exceed their default monthly AI credit limit of 25,000, with any overages being billed. Admins can also set a maximum limit for these overages. The Admin console setting for this control is available immediately, and the billing for credit overages will commence on November 1, 2025.

Emoji reactions now supported in client-side encrypted Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

Client-side encrypted (CSE) files, specifically Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, now support emoji reactions. This update enables users to react to comments and content with emojis, enhancing collaborative features within the secure CSE framework. Users can add, resolve, delete, and re-open reactions, which are also reflected in a file’s version history and preserved during export or when editing Microsoft Office files.

Gemini in Google Sheets can now understand and analyze multiple tables within a single tab, enabling cross-table analysis, formula generation, charting, and data editing.

Gemini in Google Sheets now supports understanding and analyzing data across multiple tables within a single spreadsheet tab. This enhancement enables users to generate complex formulas that reference several tables, analyze data scattered across different tables to uncover insights and create visualizations, and apply changes to multiple tables simultaneously. Users can also target specific analysis by making selections within tables, enhancing the accuracy and power of their queries.

Google Workspace introduces Business Continuity Plus edition, a full-featured 'hot' standby solution for enterprise customers with extensive data syncing capabilities.

The Google Workspace Business Continuity Plus edition is a full-featured 'hot' standby solution designed for organizations requiring a more readily available environment with extensive data syncing to minimize disruption and drive immediate adoption and productivity. In addition to active directory syncing, this edition supports data syncing across various products including email, calendar, drive, and chat. It provides extended access to Google Workspace and generative AI tools for up to 60 days per year. Google recommends a partner-based solution for implementation.

Google Workspace introduces Business Continuity edition as a disaster recovery solution for non-Google Workspace primary collaboration platforms.

The new Google Workspace Business Continuity edition serves as a robust 'cold' standby disaster recovery solution for organizations using non-Google Workspace primary collaboration platforms. It provides a secure, isolated environment to ensure leadership and critical teams can communicate and collaborate during a crisis. Key functionalities include active directory syncing for user directory availability. This edition is intended for limited use, offering access to Google Workspace and generative AI tools like Gemini and NotebookLM for up to 21 days per year.

Gemini in Google Sheets now supports multi-step tasks and has expanded editing capabilities.

Gemini in Google Sheets has been updated to execute multiple actions from a single prompt, allowing users to describe complex, multi-step goals in plain language. This expansion includes automating complex formatting and data cleaning, performing multiple simultaneous formatting requests, combining analytical and structural changes, and complex structure updates. Additionally, Gemini now supports an expanded library of actions covering formatting, data entry & manipulation, structure & organization, and filtering, enabling more intuitive and powerful editing tasks within Google Sheets.