May 2025: Google Meet and Google Workspace Update Recap

Google Chat

The Google Chat Custom Emoji API became generally available last month. As a result, developers can now utilise the API to automate the process of 🎨 creating and ⚙️ managing custom 😃 emoji within your organisation.

At the end of May, Google added support for four more languages to their Gemini-generated home view Google Chat summaries. This means you can now catch up on your Chat messages and conversations in 🇫🇷 French, 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇯🇵 Japanese and 🇰🇷 Korean.

Gmail

Similar to the Gmail 🌐 web experience, the ability to interact with Gemini about 📅 Google Calendar events from the Gmail side panel has been introduced to 📱 mobile devices. You can now prompt Gemini by asking any calendar-related question, such as “What’s my schedule for tomorrow?”, or by referencing your calendar to conveniently ➕ create, ❌ delete or ✏️ edit events from your phone.

To enhance your ✉️ email experience and save you 🕒 time, longer email threads and those with multiple replies will soon display a Gemini-generated 📝 summary at the top of the email. It provides an overview of the main points of the thread without needing to 📜 scroll through its entire history or 🖱️ manually use the "Summarize this email" function. The summary cards will be readily available and automatically updated as new replies arrive, ensuring you can quickly stay informed and up-to-date while on the go on both iOS and Android.

Google Voice

At the start of May, Google Voice gained support for 📞 three-way calling. This allows you to easily add and merge another participant to an ongoing call, which can be useful when requiring input from multiple people simultaneously. Additionally, the in-call interface 🖌️ design for Google Voice was updated to feature a similar call layout to Google Meet. This includes improved placement and accessibility of call controls such as ➕ adding participants, 🔇 muting and 🔊 managing audio.

Google Drive

The first update to 🗃️ Google Drive last month was the introduction of the ability to specify 📂 files when asking Gemini a query. By using the new 🖱️ “Add sources” button or by dragging and dropping files into the Gemini sidebar, Gemini can pull information from only the selected files you want referenced instead of the entire contents of Google Drive.

Secondly, over 20 more languages are now supported by the Gemini side panel in Google Drive. Therefore, when @-mentioning a specific 📁 folder, you can now engage in direct conversations with Gemini to quickly 🕵️ locate files, 🔎 find specific information or 📃 generate a concise overview of the folder’s contents in languages such as 🇫🇷 French, 🇮🇹 Italian and many more.

The new addition of “Export to Doc” and “Export to Sheet” buttons buttons in the Gemini side panel of Google Drive eliminates the need for you to manually copy and paste Gemini’s responses. With a 🖱️ click of a button, this new feature quickly provides you with either a 📄 Google Docs or 📊 Sheets file containing Gemini’s output that's ready for 📤 sharing and 👥 collaboration.

In May, Google began rolling out a way to show engagement on your uploaded videos in Google Drive. When you check the 📝 Details panel of any video in 📂 Drive, you'll soon find a new 📊 Analytics section. Here, you'll see the total number of times your video has been opened. Whether it’s the latest marketing assets you’ve shared with partners or a recording of the recent all-hands meeting that has been uploaded for everyone, now you’ll be able to track the video’s engagement rate.

Google also started rolling out the ability to interact with ✨ Gemini about video files directly from the side panel in 📂 Google Drive. This feature enables you to leverage Gemini to quickly understand your 📹 video content without the need to watch every second. By asking Gemini specific questions or to summarise the content, you can extract the 🔑 key information you need from videos and cut down the time you'd normally spend manually reviewing them. For instance, you could ask: "What were the three main takeaways from this meeting?" or "List the project deadlines mentioned in this video".

Google Slides

The ability to remove 🖼️ image backgrounds in Google Slides, Drawings and Vids was previously only available to people using the applications in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 English. However, last month Google introduced the ability to leverage this Gemini feature in over 20 additional languages. Now you can use 🇫🇷 French, 🇩🇪 German, 🇵🇹 Portuguese and more to quickly remove image backgrounds with a button in Slides, Drawings and Vids.

Google Sheets

Last month, the Sheets API gained support for handling tables in Google Sheets, meaning you can now use the API to help you ⚙️ automate tasks and 🎨 create and ✏️ modify your tables faster, especially when working with larger sets of data.

In addition, Gemini in Google Sheets gained the ability to directly modify spreadsheets using natural language. Simply describe what you want – like "highlight sales over $500 in yellow" – and Gemini will implement the 🎨 formatting without requiring you to navigate specific menus or know feature names. This simplifies tasks like creating dropdowns and pivot tables, applying filters and sorting data.

Google Forms

A new option in 📋 Google Forms will provide a way to contact the form’s owner – useful in cases where you are unsure what information to provide in response to a question, if you want to alert the form’s creator to a mistake and other scenarios.

Google Keep

Last month brought new 💬 rich text formatting options to 🏰 Google Keep on 🌐 web, similar to those already available on 📱 Android. This means you can now 🎨 customise your text with bold, italics, underlining and heading styles to highlight key information and improve the visual structure of your notes, making your notes more organised and easier to scan for crucial information.

Gemini

Instruction file uploads to Gems in the Gemini app are now supported in more languages, meaning you can now create your 💎 Gems – custom AI assistants – by uploading relevant 📂 files from Google Drive or your device’s local storage in over 40 additional languages. This enables you to provide your Gems with richer context in languages like 🇧🇬 Bulgarian, 🇩🇪 German, 🇰🇷 Korean and more.

A little later into May, Gemini Live was introduced to the Gemini mobile app, enabling you to have two-way 🗣️ voice conversations with Gemini directly from your 🤳 phone. Unlike simple voice commands, Gemini Live allows for fluid 🔄 back-and-forth dialogue, letting you interrupt for clarification, seamlessly switch topics or engage in dynamic discussions exploring various topics. For added context, you can also share your 📷 camera or 📱 screen and reference specific 📁 files, 🖼️ images and 📹 YouTube videos during your conversations.

The ability to conduct 🕵️ Deep Research tasks on the go is now available as support for Deep Research in the Gemini app was added on both 📱 iOS and Android devices last month. Deep Research enables Gemini to dive deeper into topics and generate a 📑 comprehensive report based on its findings. The report can then be exported to 📄 Google Docs for sharing or transformed into an 🎙️ Audio Overview to listen later.

Additionally, several new features for 📚 Deep Research in Gemini, announced at Google I/O last month, are now available. These include Deep Research's ability to leverage Gemini's 2.5 Flash experimental model and intelligently suggest additional resources, like 📊 charts and simulators, for 🔎 deeper insights on relevent topics. Supported sources for Deep Research have also been expanded: you can now upload PDFs, images and 📂 Drive files for Gemini to use in its research 📑 reports.

Several new ways to create content with 🎨 Canvas were also recently introduced in the Gemini app. Canvas can now be used to 🧑💻 code and build apps, 🌐 generate webpages, create 📊 visual briefs with structured formats and even generate 🎧 Audio Overviews in over 45 languages. You can also import and refine 📚 Deep Research reports directly into Canvas, and create interactive 🧠 quizzes on any subject.

🔊 Audio Overviews in the ✨ Gemini ✨ app gained support for 45 additional languages. This allows you to generate and download AI-hosted, podcast-style conversations from your selected 📄 Docs, 🖼️ Slides and 📑 Deep Research reports directly within the Gemini app in 🇨🇳 Chinese, 🇫🇷 French, 🇵🇹 Portuguese and many more languages.

Google Workspace apps for Gemini (formerly 🧩 “extensions”) are now officially out of beta and generally available in the Gemini app. Users with enabled access can now leverage apps like ✉️ Gmail, 📅 Calendar, 🗃️ Drive,📄 Docs, 📝 Keep and 📋 Tasks to easily and automatically pull content into the Gemini app. This eliminates the need to constantly switch between tabs and provides you with more context in responses.

NotebookLM

NotebookLM introduced the first edition of its 📱 mobile app on Android and iOS. The mobile app features offline 🎧 Audio Overviews, interaction with 🗣️ AI hosts and the ability to 📲 import sources on the go. Additionally, NotebookLM's new web feature allows you to specify the desired length of audio overviews, providing you with greater control over your learning experience.

Google Vids

As announced at ☁️ Google Cloud Next, Veo 2 is now available in 📹 Google Vids. The addition of Veo 2 in Google Vids makes it possible for you to create your own custom 🎬 video clips by simply using 💬 text prompts. Generated video clips can then be inserted into the video you are creating or regenerated by editing the prompt.

To accelerate and simplify video creation, Google Vids launched a new "Get started" page towards the end of May. The new page offers direct shortcuts to key features like ✨ “Help me create”, 🎬 video clip generation, 🖼️ templates, 🔴 recordings, 📥 uploads and starting with a blank video. This can save you time by enabling you to quickly access the tools you need to get started. Available options vary depending on your Workspace edition.

Google Vault

In 🔒 Google Vault, you can now search for files by 🏷️ Document ID and can also include or exclude specific files, potentially making it faster to 🔎 find the exact file you need.

Google Admin Panel

At the beginning of May, Google enabled admins to pre-configure the new ✨ Gemini ✨ conversation history ⚙️ settings for their Gemini app users. The default settings are that 💬 chat history will be ✅ turned on and 📦 stored for 18 months. Towards the end of the month, these new settings then started to take effect.