June 2025: Google Meet and Google Workspace Update Recap

Google Meet

At the start of last month, the ability to share content directly into calls via the 💻 meeting room's HDMI cable was introduced. This means you can now present both from Google Meet Hardware into Webex meetings and from supported Cisco devices into Google Meet calls. This makes it even easier to collaborate and share 🔑 key information with clients, partners and colleagues across platforms without barriers.

There were also several new feature updates to Google Meet’s content and screensharing capabilities. They include being able to present a 📷 camera feed as content (for alternate angles or prerecorded content), ⚡ faster screensharing, improved 📹 video quality for shared content, a larger screensharing 🖱️ button and ⏯️ automatic resumption of previous presentations. The ability to stream camera content opens up new possibilities for using external production systems, allowing for more types of content and multiple camera sources.

To enhance meeting 🔐 security, new controls were made available to manage who can request to join your Google Meet calls. The new update allows hosts to prevent 👋🚪 knocking (requests to join the meeting) from anyone with just the meeting link, limiting the number of requests exclusively to people who are explicitly invited, even if meeting access is set to “Trusted” or “Restricted”. As the host, you can configure this setting from the 📅 Calendar invitation before the meeting or via the Host controls during the meeting.

Google Meet's Companion Mode began its rollout to 📱 iOS and Android tablets, providing more options for how you can participate in 💻 meetings. This means you can now use your tablet to 🙋 raise your hand, 💬 exchange chat messages, 🔎 zoom in on presented content, 👋 check into the meeting and much more. The addition of tablet support offers greater flexibility, allowing you to use more of your available devices to access these convenient functions during a call.

Additionally, the ability to 🎨 customise the appearance of 💬 captions in Google Meet also began rolling out, allowing you to personalise the font size, font type, colour and background colour of captions to suit your preferences. You can adjust these settings during or before your meeting to improve accessibility and clarity. Your choices will remain for future meetings and only affect your view; other participants on the call can set their own preferences.

Google Meet’s automatic artefact generation feature was previously only available in 🇬🇧 English. However, starting last month, if the host's preferred language is set to 🇫🇷 French, 🇩🇪 German, 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇯🇵 Japanese, 🇰🇷 Korean, 🇵🇹 Portuguese or 🇪🇸 Spanish, then 📹 meeting recordings, 📜 transcripts and ✍️ “Take notes for me” will now be automatically generated in that language by default. This eliminates manual language configuration and ensures artefacts are always in the correct language. Meeting hosts and co-hosts can adjust these settings from the Calendar invitation or disable generation during the call.

Lastly, studio lighting in Google Meet has been expanded to support both 🌐 web and 📱 mobile devices. The feature helps improve the appearance of your meeting space by replicating studio-quality lighting that can auto-adjust during 📹 video calls to keep lighting optimal. It can also be manually calibrated for the ultimate level of control.

Google Workspace

Google Chat

Instead of marking an entire Google Chat conversation as unread, Google introduced the ability for you to now be able to mark individual 🧵 threads in a space as unread. Marking just a single thread as unread can be useful in allowing for a more precise reminder of where you intend to return.

Also, Comeen launched its 🤖 Workplace AI Agent into Google Chat. This AI-assisted integration lets you book spaces and ask office-related questions by ✍️ writing natural language prompts from your 💬 Chat conversations. You can now book desks and meeting rooms with prompts such as “Book a desk for 3pm tomorrow” or ask questions like “Where can I print on the 3rd floor?”. This helps streamline booking processes and saves 🕑 time by avoiding app switching or manual searches.

The final update to Google Chat in June means that, in addition to summaries of Google Docs, Sheets and Slides files, Gemini in Chat can now provide summaries of additional file types when they are shared in a chat message as a Drive link. These file types are:

• 📄 PDFs
• 🏢 Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• 📊 CSV
• ✍️ TXT
• 🤐 ZIP files

Clicking the “Summarize this file” button will give you a quick overview of the file's content without needing to open each document to see what it's about or to leave the Chat app. Reducing such context-switching can save you time and make it easier to keep up with shared information.

Gmail

The single June update to ✉️ Gmail introduced at the end of the month saw Google roll out a new sorting option for search results: most relevant, in addition to the existing most recent. The new “most relevant” sorting method prioritises results by considering various factors, such as:

• ⌛ Recency of emails
• 🖱️ Most-clicked emails
• 👥 Frequent contacts

You’ll have the flexibility to 🔁 switch between these two sorting methods, allowing for a more tailored and efficient search experience within Gmail.

Google Docs

Last month, Google introduced the ability to leverage the enhanced security of 🔒 client-side encrypted (CSE) Google Docs without sacrificing collaborative features as the ability to make suggestions within these highly secure 📄 documents is now supported. This means that you can utilise more of the 👥 collaborative tools of Google Docs whilst maintaining the increased security of CSE, whereby only you control the 🔑 keys that can decrypt your 📂 files.

Gemini in Google Docs also gained support for over 20 additional languages on 📱 Android devices. Now, whilst on the go, you can interact with Gemini to generate document summaries, 🔎 find key details and ask questions about your content directly from your mobile device; supported languages include 🇫🇷 French, 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇯🇵 Japanese, 🇺🇦 Ukrainian and more.

Google’s new AI 🖼️ image generation model, Imagen 4, was released into 📄 Docs, 🖼️ Slides and 📹 Vids last month. The latest model includes the addition of multilingual support, enabling you to generate custom images from ✍️ written prompts in over 20 languages and with higher-fidelity rendering of text in output images.

Google Sheets

Improving on Gemini's ability to generate static 🖼️ image charts, ✨ Gemini can now create fully ✏️ editable charts using your Sheets data. It can generate 📊 bar, 🥧 pie and 📈 line graphs depending on your specific requirements. These charts can now automatically regenerate and update to reflect changes in spreadsheet data, optimising workflows and saving 🕑 time. Once you approve and insert the graph into your file, all aspects of the chart, such as titles and 🎨 colours, are fully editable.

In addition, Gemini's ability to generate 📊 charts and 🕵️ insights in Google Sheets was expanded to support an additional seven languages. This means you can now interact with Gemini to gain insights about your data – such as best-performing products – in more languages. The supported languages are 🇫🇷 French, 🇩🇪 German, 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇯🇵 Japanese, 🇰🇷 Korean, 🇵🇹 Portuguese and 🇪🇸 Spanish.

The capabilities of the Google Sheets API were enhanced to now include support for 📂 file and 👤 people 🤓🍟 smart chips. This update enables developers to 🧑‍💻 build more dynamic and connected workflows by being able to 📖 read and ✍️ write these interactive chips using code.

The new AI function began rolling out last month, bringing instant access to ✨ Gemini directly from any cell in Google Sheets. You can invoke the AI function by 📢 calling “=AI( )” and using it to generate text based on data or cell contents – such as an ✉️ email tailored to recorded user feedback – or to summarise and categorise data in the spreadsheet, which can help you more quickly sift through data and see patterns emerge.

Google Drive

At the start of the month, Google began rolling out a new Gemini feature called🏃 “Catch Me Up” in Google Drive. This feature is designed to help you stay informed and in sync by providing a concise 📝 summary of all changes made to 📂 files since you last 👀 viewed them. It helps you stay on top of what’s happening across multiple documents, seeing who made the changes and what specifically was updated from one view. This includes ✏️ edits made in Docs and 💬 comments added to 📄 Docs, Sheets and Slides files.

Automated ✨ Gemini-generated summary cards were introduced for PDF files opened within Google Drive. These cards will provide an instant 📝 overview of the PDF's contents; they will be displayed to the side of the file, similar to comments. This update can save you time by offering a detailed summary without the need to ✍️ write a text prompt to Gemini. The cards will also present contextually-relevant, 🖱️ clickable Gemini actions – such as “Draft a sample proposal” – accelerating engagement with Gemini's capabilities by making options readily available upon opening the PDF.

The Google Drive 📹 video player experience on 📱 Android was also updated to match the latest 🌐 web experience. Updates to the app include a more modern look, in line with Google Material Design 3, and improved controls for ⏩ fast forwarding and ⏪ rewinding videos.

Similarly, the Google Drive mobile app received another update, bringing multiple changes to the file upload experience across both 📱 Android and iOS. Specifically, the 📂 initial upload screen, 🏃 progress bar and 📑 Upload tab were all modified to help improve your upload experience.

The capabilities of Google Drive's 🔑 security tools were expanded to enable admins to 👀 view information about users’ 🔎 searches. The security investigation tool now logs search queries and the returned resources which 🧑‍💻 admins can use to identify suspicious behavioural patterns. These logs are also accessible via API.

To ensure you have a seamless experience when working with Microsoft Office files, Office 📄 documents that have PDF 📁 files embedded inside are now supported when opened directly in 🗃️ Google Drive. This update means that you should have a much smoother, integrated experience as you’re less likely to run into issues when trying to 👀 view these specific files.

To end the month, Google announced new 🔐 FINRA-compliant solutions for 🗃️ Google Drive and 📅 Google Calendar to help you stay in line with FINRA regulations.

Google Forms

The ability for Gemini to generate summaries of your 📋 Google Form responses was introduced last month. By analysing the form's title, description, questions and submitted answers, it can now highlight the core themes and findings of the responses. This can help save you 🕐 time, offering quick insights into both short and long ✍️ text-based responses within Google Forms.

Additionally, you'll also soon be able to save time by leveraging ✨ Gemini to create bespoke forms as “Help me create” began rolling out in Forms last month. To use the feature, describe the form you need using a 💬 text prompt. You can also provide additional context by referencing existing 📃 Docs, Sheets, Slides and PDF files. Gemini will then generate a draft for you based on your request which you can choose to ✏️ edit or ✅ insert.

To enhance 🧑‍💻 administrative control and minimise potential data exfiltration risks, new admin ⚙️ settings were added to Google Forms that will enable you to control precisely whether 👥 users within your domain can respond to forms created externally or if they can share forms with external recipients.

Pre-existing Google Forms have gained the option for form creators to restrict who can respond. This was added to new forms created since December. With this setting, the list of respondents can be limited to specific users, groups or target audiences.

Gemini

If you are 🧑‍💻 working with your code within the ✨ Gemini app, Google introduced a way for you to more easily upload that code to provide context for your request – including by connecting your GitHub repo. You’re able to import from both public and private repos and ask Gemini to explain it, improve it, debug it or generate new code.

In addition to text, images and other supported 📂 files, the Gemini mobile app gained support for uploading 📹 video files directly from your phone to the app. You can now leverage ✨ Gemini ✨ to perform a variety of tasks, including asking Gemini to summarise the 🎬 video content, posing specific questions about the video or even using the video as a reference point for other tasks, providing more context to your Gemini prompts.

At the end of the month, scheduled actions were introduced in Gemini, enabling it to act as your daily personal AI assistant on both the 🌐 web and in the 📱 mobile app. This allows you to automate tailored updates, reminders and routine tasks. For example, you can now have Gemini provide daily morning briefings based on your 📅 calendar, offer daily rundowns of top 📰 news on specific topics or summarise your unread ✉️ emails each morning.

Google Vids

Veo 3, Google’s latest video-generation model, was added to 📹 Google Vids in June. In addition to improved video quality, Veo 3 will also generate 🔊 audio as part of the eight-second 🎬 scene based on your written text prompt.

Another feature addition introduced last month to Google Vids was the “Import Slides” option, which lets you convert your Slides presentations into 📹 videos. Once you have selected and imported your slides, Vids will automatically create 🎬 scenes – based on each slide’s ✍️ text, 🖼️ images and other elements – which you can then ✏️ edit further.

NotebookLM

Context-Aware Access provides 🧑‍💻 admins control over which users can access different Workspace apps based on the context of the user’s request, based on factors such as device type or location. Whilst 🔐 Context-Aware Access (CAA) policies for NotebookLM were introduced earlier this year, admins can now also specify these policies for the NotebookLM mobile app.

Google Groups

Towards the end of the month, Google announced that starting on 15th September 2025, Google Groups will no longer support custom roles for configuring who can manage and view members, nor the option for the entire organisation to manage members. Existing custom roles will be discontinued by 5th January 2026; Google recommends the use of pre-built roles instead.

The new 🔒 “Locked” feature for Google Groups became generally available at the end of the month, enabling admins to restrict the ability for others to make changes to the group attributes.

Google Admin Panel

A new data set called the “Policy compliance log events” is now accessible via the 🔐 security investigation tool for organisations on the Workspace Enterprise Plus and Frontline Plus tier. This enables admins to generate detailed 📑 audit reports which can be used to verify that data region settings are in full compliance with internal policies and external regulatory guidelines.

Additionally, for organisations on Workspace Enterprise Plus, 🧑‍💻 admins can now set data region policies that will govern ✨ Gemini features in Google Workspace apps. This allows you to specify 📍 locations (🇪🇺 EU, 🇺🇲 US or both) for data at rest and data processing for Gemini functions such as ✍️ “Help me write” in Gmail. Admins can configure these ⚙️ settings by organisational units to help ensure regulatory requirements are met.

At the end of the month, Google Workspace made its Multi-Party Approval (MPA) security feature more flexible. MPA requires a second 🧑‍💻 admin to approve certain sensitive actions taken by another admin. Now, after last month's update, you can choose exactly which admin actions need ✔ ️approval and even set different rules for actions taken via the API versus the admin console. This allows for more precise 🔐 security controls and helps define what counts as a high-risk action.

Google Workspace Add-on

Google AI Ultra had previously only been available to consumer Google accounts; however, that changed when Google launched Google AI Ultra for Business at the end of June. 💼 This new Google Workspace add-on provides access to higher AI usage limits, the latest AI models and new AI 🧰 tools:

• Flow – an AI tool for filmmaking
• Whisk – an AI tool to create images and videos
• Project Mariner – a tool to help automate research and data entry (currently only in the 🇺🇸 US)

Catch up on May’s updates

Do you want to see what happened in May? You can catch up on all of the updates across Google Meet and Google Workspace from the month in our May 2025 recap.

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