The start of 2026 has brought many new features to Google Meet and Google Workspace, from enhanced accessibility features in 📹 Google Vids to several new admin controls in Google Meet. We’ve rounded up all of the updates from 💬 Google Chat, 📂 Google Drive and more.
Continue reading to see everything that’s new in January; or, jump to the section that interests you the most.
Google Meet
Last month, the Google Meet Hardware ecosystem expanded when Neat joined the lineup. The Neat Bar Gen 2 and Neat Bar Pro are the first Neat devices certified for Google Meet, both of which use the Neat Pad as the room controller. To further enhance meeting equity and participant engagement, the newly-certified devices can also be paired with the Neat Center to capture people’s faces from the centre of the table.
💡 Note: if you already have Neat Bar 2 or Neat Bar Pro, all you need to start running Google Meet is a Google Meet Hardware licence. ✉️ Contact us for more details on how to get licences.
In the middle of January, automatic room check-in for Google Meet gained support for 📱 mobile devices: the rollout began in January on iOS and in February on Android. Previously only available for the 🌐 web experience, this update enables the 🎤 microphone in your mobile device to pick up the 🔊 ultrasound signal from Google Meet Hardware in the room. If the signal is detected, you’ll then be guided to join the call in 👥 companion mode where you’ll be automatically ✅ checked into the correct room.
📊 Usage metrics for Google Meet were added to the Gemini dashboard a week later. These metrics provide 🔎 insights into the use of Gemini features within your organisation, such as how often ✍️ “Take notes for me” or ❓ “Ask Gemini” are used and how many users actively engage with Gemini whilst on a Google Meet call.
✨ Ask Gemini ✨ continues to roll out to more people and with more features. After its introduction to Google Meet in September 2025, the in-meeting AI assistant – that can help you catch up on what you missed – rolled out to users on Google Workspace Business Standard last month. Beginning this month, it can also be used on 📱 mobile devices and in seven additional languages: 🇫🇷 French, 🇩🇪 German, 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇯🇵 Japanese, 🇰🇷 Korean, 🇵🇹 Portuguese and 🇪🇸 Spanish.
A few new 🧑💻 admin settings for Google Meet were introduced last month. At the start of January, admins were able to begin preconfiguring the availability of Google Meet 🗣️🌍 Speech Translation ahead of the feature’s wider rollout to beta at the end of the month. Speech Translation in Meet provides near-real-time 🔊 audio translation of what’s being said during a meeting – in a voice similar to the speaker’s. It currently supports translations between English and several other languages.
💡 Note: Google Meet Speech Translation will only be available if the Gemini for Meet admin setting has been enabled.
Then, a new 🔁 “Reboot when idle” option meant that admins could confidently 📅 schedule an imminent reboot of Google Meet Hardware remotely from the Google Admin Panel whilst avoiding interrupting any ongoing meetings. A device will only act upon the reboot command once the device is inactive, meaning that there is no current 📞 Google Meet call (native or interop), 🖼️ presentation or ◻️ whiteboard session taking place.
💡 Note: admins will still be able to perform immediate reboots if required. “Reboot when idle” and “Reboot now” will coexist as options.
By the end of the month, admins were granted greater control over ✍️ “Take notes for me” in Google Meet, gaining the ability to configure organisation-wide default access levels for 📝 meeting notes and whether hosts can override these sharing settings. Specifically, there are options to set the default sharing permissions to 🏢 invited guests in your organisation, 👥 all invited guests or 🗣️ host and co-hosts, which can be configured by OU (organisational unit).
Additionally, you can now configure “Take notes for me” to be automatically enabled for all future meetings that you host on Google Meet. This means that you won’t need to remember to manually activate the Gemini feature to take meeting notes for individual meetings as it'll be on by default.
Google Workspace
Google Chat
The ability to 📩 forward messages in 💬 Google Chat was introduced near the end of January. This update means that you can save time by not having to copy-paste or send screenshots when referring to a message as the forwarded message will conveniently retain the full context of the original. This includes the 👤 original sender’s name, 📍 source and 📎 attachments. You’ll be able to forward messages between direct conversations and 🚀 spaces as well as from a 🧵 thread to the main conversation.
💡 Note: messages cannot be forwarded to conversations that include external members.
Google Drive
Previously, when you accessed password-protected Microsoft files in 📂 Google Drive, you were limited to a 👀 view-only role. As of last month, you can now ✏️ edit them directly within 📄 Docs, 📈 Sheets and 🖼️ Slides. This allows you to edit these 🔐 protected files without needing third-party apps, enhancing the interoperability between Google Workspace and Microsoft Office.
💡 Note: when you choose to edit a protected Microsoft file, the password will be automatically removed whereas previewing the file will keep the password in place.
Google Calendar
Towards the end of last month, Google began automatically adding all of the secondary calendars you own to your calendar list in 📅 Google Calendar, meaning that they will be constantly visible. As a result, you’ll have faster access to manage them from the Calendar ⚙️ settings page, allowing you to change things such as sharing permissions and to transfer ownership of the calendars.
To make it easier to schedule meetings at a time that works for all attendees, Gemini in 📅 Google Calendar can now suggest meeting times based on all of your calendars to find a time that works for everyone, minimising conflicts and the risk of low attendance. If a meeting needs to be rescheduled due to multiple invitees declining, a new banner will display alternative times when all attendees are available. This makes it easier to move the event to a convenient time for everyone.
💡 Note: you must have access to attendees’ calendars for Gemini to suggest meeting times.
Google also announced that 🏷️ label names in Google Calendar will soon be visible to anyone with the 🔒 “Make changes to events” permission. This means that, when you’re managing other calendars, you’ll be able to see what each label 🎨 colour means, making it easier to work with them. If needed, you can review your own calendar sharing settings to see who would gain visibility of your label names.
Google Forms
In order to help manage the amount of responses received for your forms, Google began rolling out the ability for you to set certain limits that, once reached, will trigger your form to automatically close and stop collecting new responses. You’ll be able to specify a close 📅 date and 🕑 time or a limit to the 📑 number of responses.
Additionally, all existing forms are to be automatically ⬆️ upgraded to give you more granular sharing settings. This means that you’ll no longer have to manually upgrade existing forms to control which 👥 specific users, groups or target audiences are able to respond to your forms. Whilst a form is upgrading, it can continue to receive responses from the same users as before. Only when the form is fully upgraded will you be able to use the more granular sharing ⚙️ settings.
Gemini
At the end of the month, Google introduced 📓 NotebookLM as a new source for you to reference when interacting with ✨ Gemini. If you’ve already built a repository of knowledge, you’ll now be able to leverage it within the Gemini app. This will enable you to combine the 📚 research you conducted in NotebookLM with the Gemini app’s capabilities, providing deeper context and access to the app’s 🎨 content-creating tools. For instance, you could use your notebooks when creating 💎 Gems or generating 📖 study guides.
Google Vids
Veo 3.1 in 📹 Google Vids lets you generate videos based on a ✍️ text prompt and 🖼️ referenced images. In January, you were able to start generating ↕️ portrait-oriented content as well as the standard 16:9 widescreen ratio. The addition of a portrait layout provides you with greater flexibility to create clips that can be easily adapted to different use cases, including to fit on various social platforms.
To make the captions in your videos even more engaging and accessible for your 👀 viewers, you’re now able to add 🎨 styled, 💬 animated captions that synchronise with 🔊 audio and 🖼️ media elements in Google Vids. There are various styled options for you to choose from – with the flexibility to differentiate styling between each 🎬 scene and ✏️ edit the captions if necessary.
Google Workspace Services
In the middle of January, Google added 🎥 Flow to Google Workspace. Flow is Google’s AI-powered filmmaking tool which lets you generate videos using ✍️ text prompts and 🖼️ uploaded images, turning ideas into 🎬 cinematic scenes with models such as 📽️ Veo 3.1 and 🍌 Nano Banana Pro. You’ll get 🪙 100 credits included when you access Flow with Workspace. If you need more, the Google AI Ultra for Business add-on will grant you 25,000 credits in addition to access to other AI features, tools and models.
Catch up on 2025 updates
Interested in a detailed summary of how Google Meet and Google Workspace changed throughout the past year? You can catch up on all of the biggest updates across Google Meet and Google Workspace from 2025.
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