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This announcement is part of Google Cloud Next ‘23. Visit the Workspace Blog to learn more about the new Google Chat. 

What’s changing

Earlier this year, we announced a modernized Google Chat based on Google’s Material Design 3 that included updates to the font, colors, layouts, panel sizing and more. Building upon this, we’re introducing message bubbles to enable users to more easily differentiate incoming versus outgoing messages in the Chat message stream. 

Currently, all messages in Chat are aligned the same regardless of the sender and displayed without any visual containers that separate messages into clear groups. With today’s update: 
  • Each incoming message will have an independent message bubble aligned to one side with a solid color background 
  • Each outgoing message will have an independent message bubble aligned to the other side with a different color background 
Differentiate messages better with additional modernizations in Google Chat
Getting started 
  • Admins and end users: No action required. You’ll automatically see these updates in your web and mobile experience over the next several weeks. 
Mobile - Each incoming message will have an independent message bubble aligned to one side with a solid color background Each outgoing message will have an independent message bubble aligned to the other side with a different color background

Rollout pace 
Web: 
Android: 
Availability 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 
Resources 
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What’s changing 
Currently, there are a variety of features to help make meetings more inclusive and equitable, including screen reader support and live captions. 


Today, we’re introducing tile pairing for Google Meet, which will allow you to pair your video tile with another meeting participant's tile. Once you pair your tile, other meeting participants will see both tiles shown next to each other. Both pairing partners will have their borders outlined in blue when speaking. Tile pairing will be indicated in the meeting captions as well. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins and end users 


Why it matters
Tile pairing can help make meetings more accessible, specifically in situations where you want to ensure a sign-language or other language interpreter is visible during the meeting. You can also use this feature to pair speaker duos or presenters with co-presenters for a more dynamic presenting experience. 


Additional details 
At this time, tile pairings will not be captured in meeting recordings. Also, tile pairing is not available in break out rooms at this time.


Getting started
  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default and can be turned off at the OU level. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing Meet settings and accessibility in Google Meet.

  • End users: 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about pairing tiles in Google Meet and accessibility in Google Meet.
    • If enabled by your admin, tile pairing will be available for all users. Find the user you would like to pair with in the participant list, click on the 3-dot menu and send a pairing request.
    • You’ll receive a notification with a choice to “accept” or “decline” the pairing.
Rollout pace


Availability
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

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What’s changing
To boost collaboration in Google Slides, we’re introducing live pointers, a new feature that allows you and your colleagues to see each other’s mouse pointers in real-time. 

With this update, co-creators can easily point out specific text or visual elements within a Slide in order to highlight important information and content. 
Live pointers in Google Slides
Who’s impacted 
End users 

Why it’s important 
Live pointers help to build connections when you're collaborating in real-time with others. 

Getting started 
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 
    • This feature is OFF by default. To make your pointer visible to collaborators, go to View > Live pointers > show my pointer. You can also turn the feature on by using the pointer icon in the toolbar. Live pointers will remain visible across all slides until you turn them OFF.
      • You can hide collaborator pointers for the current session by going into present mode, or by going to View > Live pointers > show collaborator pointers. 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about live pointers in Google Slides. 

Rollout pace 

Availability 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 
Resources
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What’s changing
In continuing our efforts to improve spaces in Google Chat, we’re introducing the ability for space managers and users with the permission to manage members to add Google Groups to a space. With this update, the group members are automatically added to a space and any changes to the group's membership, such as adding and removing members, are also automatically reflected in the space. 
Add Google Groups to spaces in Google Chat

Who’s impacted 
Admins and end users 

Why you’d use it 
This feature adds a Google Group to a space and continuously syncs membership from Groups to Chat, making membership management, especially adding or removing a large number of members, much easier. 

Additional details 
  • Memberships are updated from Groups to Chat, which means changes to the space membership will not be reflected in the group members list. 
  • Some groups and their members may not be visible to all members in the space as group member visibility in spaces will respect the group’s member visibility settings set in Google Groups. 
  • Group members can be promoted to space managers. Visit the Help Center to learn more about making someone a space manager. 

Getting started 
  • Admins: 
    • By default, any space manager or user with permission to manage members can add groups to space. 
    • To limit this feature so that only Google Group owners and managers can add groups to spaces, sign into the Admin console > go to Menu > Apps > Google Workspace > Google Chat > select “Groups in Chat” > Choose who can add groups to spaces > click Save. Visit the Help Center to learn more about restricting who can add Google Groups to spaces. 
  • End users: 
    • If you are a space manager or have permission to manage members, you can add the Google Group as a member by selecting the space > going to space settings > click Manage members > select the “+ Add” button > enter the name of the group you want to add > click Add. 
    • If you are unable to add a group to a space, it is likely that your admin has restricted the ability to add a group to the Group owners and managers. Reach out to the Google Group owners and managers to add the group. 
    • Google Groups can also be added when creating a new space. Visit the Help Center to learn more about creating spaces. 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about adding a group to a space, removing a group from a space, viewing groups in a space and more. 
  • Developers: For developers who are registered in the Workspace Developer Preview program, you will be able to modify your Chat App to also list Google Groups added to spaces using the Chat API. 
Rollout pace 
Admin controls: 
Add Groups to spaces: 
Availability 
Resources 
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What’s changing 
You can now find, install, and use third-party applications all without having to leave Google Meet. At the top of the activities panel, you’ll see a “Featured add-ons” category — from here, it takes two clicks to install and begin using apps such as Confluence, Figma, Lucidspark, Miro, Polly and Read.ai in your meetings. 





You can use the “Get add-ons” button to open the Google Workspace Marketplace to browse additional add-ons for Meet. Note that in some cases, admins may have pre-installed add-ons for you or have turned off access to certain add-ons. 


Whether you’re leveraging the white boarding capabilities of Miro or Lucidspark, or using Figma to explore design possibilities in real time — you can do it all within Google Meet, without switching tabs or opening additional applications. Further, since these add-ons open directly in Meet, you can share your screen with all participants, even those who don’t have the add-on or are on an unsupported platform.


Additional details
The Miro-Meet integration is now available via the Miro add-on
In 2022, we announced the Miro integration within Google Meet — at that time, Miro would open in a separate tab with Google Meet in the sidebar. Beginning today, Miro will open directly in Meet, allowing you to leverage Miro’s rich capabilities designed for innovation without leaving Meet. With this update, users can access the Miro integration with Meet by installing the Miro add-on in the Google Workspace Marketplace. For more information about how the Miro experience is changing, see this Community forum post.



Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers

Resources
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4 New updates 

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.


Insert links in the Google Sheets app on iOS devices 
We’re adding the ability to insert a hyperlink into a cell in the Google Sheets iOS app by selecting a cell > clicking “+” in the top left corner > Insert > Link. If a cell contains a link, you’ll see options to edit or remove the link. | Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about working with links & bookmarks. 
Insert links in the Google Sheets app on iOS devices


Enhanced spam protection through automatic labeling of suspected spam messages in Google Voice 
If you're using Google Voice, you're familiar with our suspected spam caller warnings. We're extending this feature to SMS messages on Android and iOS devices. You'll see these labels within the message, and you can either: 
  • Confirm a suspected spam message, which causes future messages from that number to go directly into the spam folder. 
  • Mark a labeled message as not spam, after which the suspected spam label is never displayed for that number again. 
Available to Voice Starter, Standard, and Premier customers, as well as users with personal accounts in the US. | Rolling out now to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains at an extended pace (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility). 
Enhanced spam protection through automatic labeling of suspected spam messages in Google Voice



Birthday decorations for people cards 
In Google Contacts and across various Google Workspace products, you’ll begin to notice birthday decorations when hovering over another user’s people card. This small change can have a big impact on building deeper connections with your colleagues and stakeholders. Birthday decorations will be displayed on your birthday if you’ve added your birthday to your Google Account profile and you’ve set the information to be visible to others. | Available now for all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about your Google Account profile and what information others can see.
Birthday decorations for people cards
Add an organizational unit as an attribute in your external directory 
When using Directory Sync, you can now place users from the Azure Active Directory or Active Directory to a specific organizational unit on the Google Workspace side. To do so, you’ll need to add an organizational unit as an attribute in your external directory. This makes it easier to sync users who will be mapped to different organizational units on the Google Workspace side. | Directory Sync is available as an open beta to all Google Workspace customers. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting up users to sync based on an organizational unit attribute.
Add an organizational unit as an attribute in your external directory


Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


Dual Display on Poly Studio X Series Makes Video Meetings More Productive 
We are excited to announce dual display support for Google Meet on the Poly Studio X Series to help make video meetings more productive. With dual displays, you can see more meeting participants, presentations, and documents at once, which can help you stay focused and engaged in meetings. | Available to Google Workspace customers with Poly Studio X50, X52, and X70 devices only. | Learn more about Dual Display on Poly Studio X Series.

Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.


Rapid Release Domains:
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What’s changing 
We are excited to announce dual display support for Google Meet on the Poly Studio X Series to help make video meetings more productive. With dual displays, you can see more meeting participants, presentations, and documents at once, which can help you stay focused and engaged in meetings. With a single display, shared content takes over a majority of the screen and minimizes the view of meeting participants. Minimizing the view of participants can affect meeting engagement by limiting conversation between those who are in the room and those who are not. 


During a video meeting with dual displays, the primary and secondary screens will show the view of all the participants in the meeting, including the view of the local room.
  • When a participant presents, the presentation will enlarge onto one screen display and the participant views will reflect on the other screen display. 
  • Where supported, the controller or remote will also provide options like pinning participants, changing the layout of the participant tiles, and showing the meeting's chat history.



Visit the Help Center to learn more about Dual Displays.

Getting Started
  • Admins: 
  • End Users: To use dual displays with the Poly Studio X Series of video bars, simply plug a second display into the device’s display port. The Poly Studio X Series will automatically recognize the second monitor and add it as a secondary display.
Availability
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers with Poly Studio X50, X52, and X70 devices.
    • Note: Poly Studio X30 only supports a single monitor. Poly Studio X50, X52, and X70 devices support dual display.

Rollout
  • This new feature is available now for compatible Poly Studio X Series devices running Poly OS 4.0.1 or higher.


Resources



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5 New updates 

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.


Expanding autocorrect to Google Chat on web 
Google Chat on web will now automatically correct misspelled words, making it easier to send messages without typos. Similar to functionality in Gmail and Google Docs, the corrected words are shown with a gray underline so you know when the auto-correction has occurred. | This feature is rolling out now to all English users.
Expanding autocorrect to Google Chat on web

Expanding streamlined file organization across Google Workspace 
Earlier this year, we introduced streamlined file organization with the new Google Drive location picker. As a follow up, we're expanding this updated visual experience to Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Sites and Gmail. Users will now have access to helpful suggestions when moving files, adding shortcuts to files, or creating copies of files. | Rolling out now to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains at an extended pace (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility). | Learn more about how to use Google Drive. 

Updated zoom in/out capabilities across Google Docs, Slides and Drawings
We’re introducing new zoom keyboard shortcuts in Google Docs and Slides on web to help you zoom in, zoom out, or scale to 100%. Additionally, you can now smoothly zoom in or out in Slides using the trackpad or mouse wheel with a modifier key (cmd/ctrl), making it easier to control your view of Slides. | Learn more about keyboard shortcuts for Docs and Slides. 

Expanded language support for captions in Google Meet 
Captions in Google Meet allow you to view captions as everyone speaks during a meeting. Over the course of the next several weeks, you’ll be able to use captions in more languages: 

Arabic (Arab Emirates) (Beta)

Arabic (Egypt) (Beta)

Arabic (Levant) (Beta)

Arabic (Maghrebi) (Beta)

Bengali (Bangladesh) (Beta)

Bulgarian (Bulgaria) (Beta)

Chinese (Simplified) (Beta)

Chinese, Mandarin (Traditional) (Beta)

English (UK) (Beta)

Gujarati (India) (Beta)

Hindi (Beta)

isiXhosa (South Africa) (Beta)

Kannada (India) (Beta)

Khmer (Cambodia) (Beta)

Kinyarwanda (Rwanda) (Beta)

Malayalam (India) (Beta)

Marathi (India) (Beta)

Northern Sotho (South Africa) (Beta)

Sesotho (South Africa) (Beta)

Swati (South Africa) (Beta)

Swedish (Sweden) (Beta)

Tshivenda (South Africa) (Beta)

Tswana (South Africa) (Beta)

Xitsonga (South Africa) (Beta)

Available now to all Google Workspace customers. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about using captions in Google Meet.

Dynamic groups now supports negation queries 
You can now create or edit dynamic groups to use negation in membership queries. For example, you can opt to create a dynamic group that excludes all users from a particular sub organization or specific job title. There are a few limitations, however — any query using the “exists” macro and using the AND (&) operator or queries where the NOT operator is used inside of the “exists” macro will not be supported. | Rolling out to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains at gradual pace (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting September 11, 2023. | Available to Google Workspace Frontline Standard, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus and Cloud Identity Premium customers only. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about creating membership queries for dynamic groups and our Developer documentation for more information about formulating and testing a membership query. 
Dynamic groups now supports negation queries

Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


Expanding branding and customization capabilities to Google Sites 
You can now easily and quickly create with high-quality, pre-designed themes for Google Sites. | Available to Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus only. | Learn more about changing how your Google Site looks. 

Introducing a new ultra-low latency viewer experience for in-domain live streaming in Google Meet 
We are introducing a new ultra-low latency viewing experience for video meetings that are streamed within an organization. The new experience will be available to the first ten thousand viewers — all additional viewers will have the existing experience. | Learn more about in-domain live streaming in Google Meet. 

More Google Meet features for Google Workspace Individual users 
If you’re a Google Workspace Individual user, you can now take advantage of several new Meet features and enhancements. We hope these updates make it easier for you to connect and collaborate with your customers and stakeholders, continuing to drive your business forward. | Learn more about features for Google Workspace Individual users. 

Lock files more easily in Google Drive 
We’re adding the option to lock Drive files by right-clicking the file, selecting “File information”, and clicking “Lock”. Locking a file makes sure reviewers can’t change a file. Edits, comments and suggestions can't be added to locked documents. | Learn more about locking files in Drive.

Increased row limits in Connected Sheets for BigQuery 
We’re increasing the maximum number of rows of results returned from BigQuery for pivot tables and for data extracts. Pivot tables have been expanded to 50,000 rows (previously 30,000) and data extracts have been expanded to 50,000 rows (previously 25,000). | Learn more about Connected Sheets for BigQuery.


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What’s changing
Connected Sheets provides the power and scale of a BigQuery data warehouse in the familiar context of Google Sheets. Starting today, we’re increasing the maximum number of rows of results returned from BigQuery for pivot tables and for data extracts: 
  • Pivot tables have been expanded to 50,000 rows (previously 30,000) 
  • Data extracts have been expanded to 50,000 rows (previously 25,000) 
With the increase in row limits, you can now analyze even more rows of results in Sheets from the petabytes of data in BigQuery. Additionally, we’ve made performance improvements for pivot tables and extracts in Connected Sheets, including updates to creating a pivot table, deleting an extract, cut/copy/pasting data in a pivot table, inserting a row, deleting a column, and more.
Getting started 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 
Resources 
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What’s changing
We’re adding the option to lock Drive files by right-clicking the file, selecting “File information”, and clicking “Lock”. Locking a file makes sure reviewers can’t change a file. Edits, comments and suggestions can't be added to locked documents. 

This update simplifies and streamlines the process of restricting files in Drive, which was previously only available through the Google Drive API or through file approvals. 
Lock files more easily in Google Drive
Getting started
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: 
    • In order to lock a Drive file, you must have edit-access to the Drive file. 
    • When hovering over a file in Drive, right-click into the context menu and choose “File information” > “Lock”> confirm that you actually want to lock the document by selecting “Lock”. 
      • Once locked, no one can make edits to the Doc until it is unlocked. 
      • You can unlock a file through the context menu as well. 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about getting approvals on files in Google Drive. 

Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers 
Resources 
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