Google Workspace Changes

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.

Expanded access to several AI features in Google Vids for Education Plus and Teaching & Learning add-on users.

Google Vids has expanded access to several AI features for users with an Education Plus or Teaching & Learning add-on license, available for a limited time through May 31st, 2026. These features include read-along mode in the teleprompter, AI voice overs, text-to-image generation, AI-powered image editing for background replacement/expansion, a "Help me create" tool for video story planning, and transcript trim. This enables educators and students to generate custom images and video clips, add professional touches, and use preset voiceovers for narration.

The "Editors can change permissions and share" setting in Google Drive will be updated, affecting how changes to containing shared folders apply to items with this setting off.

Starting September 22, 2025, if the "Editors can change permissions and share" setting is off, and an item's owner places it in a shared folder, any changes to the shared folder's access will apply to the item. Previously, this only occurred if the item's owner made the folder access change. Additionally, starting October 8, 2025, limited access will be applied to pre-existing items with this setting turned off, meaning only the owner can share them. This limited access will not apply to items with the setting turned off after October 8, 2025.

Google Drive will no longer allow restricted access on specific files/folders within a shared folder, requiring consistent management via limited access folder setting.

Previously, users could restrict access to individual files or folders inside a shared folder. Starting September 22, 2025, this will no longer be possible. Access must be managed consistently at the shared folder level using the limited access folder setting. Users with permission to restrict access on the parent folder will no longer see the “update item only” option, and users without this permission will have certain options grayed out.

Google Forms now proactively provides Gemini-generated summaries for short-answer and paragraph questions when reviewing responses.

Previously, users could request Gemini to summarize specific responses in Google Forms. With this update, users will automatically see proactive Gemini-generated insights and summaries for short-answer or paragraph questions directly within the 'Responses' tab of a form. This feature is designed to help users quickly understand sentiment, analyze feedback, and gain insights from forms without needing to manually review extensive text. The feature will be on by default for eligible users and can be managed by admins.