What's new in Google Workspace: Three updates to Google Workspace for hybrid work

Google Cloud Next ‘22, an annual event held by Google has come and gone, with a number of developments bringing greater integration to Google products including new innovations in their core products, open and extensible additions for third-party developers, and new features aimed at increasing safety and security.

Google Workspace is one of the most popular productivity tools on the planet, and a number of changes aim to make collaboration easier and empower better hybrid work experiences.

New innovations

Smart Canvas, released earlier this year, added powerful new @ features (type “@” in a Google Doc to see it in action) that dynamically link to people, files, meetings, templates, and more. This innovation injected Google Docs with powerful features that bring Google’s different tools together in a dynamic way. Since the initial @ mentions of people’s names, various other smart chips have been added. Smart chips are available in Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and other products now.

Google Meet is also set for an upgrade. Speaker spotlight will enable a speaker’s video to be directly added to their content, and Adaptive framing fixes a common webcam issue by ensuring that the presenter is front and center in the video. Another useful tool is the addition of Slides controls directly within Meet so presenters can confidently present their content and see their audience at the same time. The new Meeting room check-in feature(Available in early 2023) lets meeting attendees check in at a specific location and allows participants in conference rooms to be automatically assigned to breakout rooms together. 

Finally, Google Chat is getting broadcast-only spaces to make it easier for leaders to make broad announcements across the organization. Also, ‘’inline threaded conversations’’ is now available in Google Chat, which allows users to go deeper on specific conversations.

Open and extensible

With hybrid work, one of the most important features is choice. Having the option to choose the tools that work best for particular applications and having those tools integrate with the other apps in the software stack. Smart Canvas is being extended to allow that to happen. 

Tying together Google tools was the first step, and now Smart Canvas is introducing smart chips for popular third-party applications including AODocs, Asana, Atlassian, Figma, LumApps, Miro, Tableau, and ZenDesk. These new integrations connect with some of the most popular enterprise applications in use today, transforming the way people work every day. New smart chips are available to developers to build their own app integrations, and they’ll be available to all users in 2023.

Keeping with the integration of third-party tools, Google Meet is also getting some. Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are already allowed to present directly from within the document for real-time collaboration. Now, with the Google Meet API and Google Meet add-on SDK, partners can bring their apps together with Google Meet for seamless integration of their tools into a meeting.

Finally, partner applications are also coming to Google Chat and Spaces, including automatic creation of direct messages or group chats programmatically so that apps can write messages without launching the app. 

Safer Workplace

Managing security in a hybrid environment might be challenging, especially when integrating pre-cloud era technologies that struggle to scale to meet today's threats. Google Workspace has always been cloud-only, so customers benefit from Google's cloud expertise in threat protection, AI, and global scale. Now, Google is extending advanced data protection to keep users and data safe across more apps, by empowering admins with tools to control data according to organizational requirements and business goals.

‘Data loss prevention for Chat helps admins create custom policies to help prevent sensitive information leaks. Checks happen in real time to take corrective action immediately, helping to keep sensitive data secure.

Assured Controls(available in the US only) is a new add-on to precisely control cloud service provider access. The first feature is Access Management, which allows geographic limitations on Google staff support actions. It is a useful control, especially for highly regulated industries such as the public sector. In practice, this control ensures that sensitive data subject to information governance requirements can restrict access to Google staff in specific geographic locations without needing to manage a separate cloud environment.

Jump onto the cloud today with CloudMile

Google Workspace is the premier online collaboration and work tool for businesses of all sizes. Google Cloud provides the flexibility and scale to support them all and grow as you do. CloudMile, as a premier Google Cloud partner, has the expertise to support your transition to the cloud and make adopting the cloud more smoothly.