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October 2024: Google Meet and Google Workspace Update Recap

October saw some great additions to Google Meet and Google Workspace, such as watermarking in Meet, video messages in Chat and tabs in Docs. Join us as we unpack these new features and explore other announcements you may have missed.

Read on to discover everything new; or, jump straight to the application that interests you most:

Google Meet

A short video of a user in an active Google Meet call on the web. The user clicks on the host controls on the bottom of the right-hand side of the screen and a window pops up. The user chooses “Add a watermark” and a message pops up in the bottom left-hand corner: “A watermark is now shown on all devices”. The user then closes the host controls.

At the start of October, 💦 watermarking arrived in Google Meet for select Gemini for Google Workspace add-ons. This feature lets you add a unique visual overlay to your presented content and video feeds during meetings, displaying the meeting code and the email address of the participant viewing the content. It discourages unauthorised sharing and helps presenters share materials with confidence.

Pronouns are now displayed in Google Meet. If you’ve set your pronouns on your Google Workspace profile, they’ll appear in Google Meet calls on the web, letting everyone know how you would like to be referred to.

Google also shared that admins can now automatically enable meeting 📹 recordings, 📃 transcripts and the Gemini 📝 “Take notes for me” feature for all new meetings on Google Meet. This ensures that important meetings can be fully documented without the need for individual hosts to manually set it up.

Another admin-focused update brings new client debug logs to the Google Admin panel, offering deeper insights into Enterprise Content Delivery Network (eCDN) performance for Google Meet livestreams. eCDN helps lower bandwidth usage for livestreams. Specifically, these logs provide information about device status, network settings and streaming performance to help admins better understand the effect that eCDN is having across different parts of a local network.

A photograph of a meeting room. There is a large table in the middle of the room where four people are seated facing a wall-mounted TV screen and Logitech Rally Bar. The TV screen shows an active meeting being run from a laptop on the table, connected via Logitech Extend. There are also a Logitech Sight and meeting room touch controller on the table.

For meeting rooms, Logitech launched a new plug-and-play BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) solution called Logitech Extend. This solution brings flexibility to your spaces by enabling you to run meetings on any video conferencing platform from your Logitech appliance mode or camera-only meeting room – without the need to install additional drivers or software. Extend is available to shop in all Gecko regions: Europe, USA and UK/Rest of World.

Logitech also announced that three of its Logitech for Business headsets – Zone Wireless 2, Zone Vibe Wireless and Zone 305 – now support call controls over native Bluetooth for Google Meet on ChromeOS. This means you can use the controls on your headset to quickly answer and end calls and sync your mute status with Google Meet without needing a USB dongle, which was previously required for these call controls to work reliably.

Google Workspace

Google Chat

A short video of a user in Google Chat on the web. The user selects “video message” in the Chat panel and a countdown starts at 3 seconds. The user then records their video message, selects “preview” to watch it back and then sends it to the Google Chat space.

In October, Google announced that 📽 video messages are coming to Google Chat, providing a more engaging and personal way to share updates with team members. Video messages offer another communication option on top of existing text or voice messages and will be available in all conversation types. You can preview or re-record video messages before sending them.

Automatic transcriptions for Google Chat 🎙 voice messages were also introduced, making it convenient for you to consume the message in your preferred way, whether by 🎧 listening to the recording or 📖 reading the transcript.

A short video of a user in the Google Chat home view. The screen shows their most recent conversations, including some with new, unread messages. The user hovers over an unread conversation in a space and presses the “Summarize” button to get a summary of the unread messages in that conversation, condensed into three bullet points. The user then closes the summary.

A new ✨ Gemini ✨ feature launched in Google Chat, allowing you to easily preview summaries of your unread conversations right from the 🏡 home view. These summaries provide quick insights into what you have missed, making it faster to catch up on key points from those conversations without scrolling through every chat message.

Updates started rolling out to the feature that allows you to send ✉ emails directly to Google Chat spaces. Specifically, when an email is sent to a space all email replies will now be shown in a 🧵 thread rather than individual cards in the message stream, making it easier to follow and understand the context of the entire conversation. Admins can now also create space email addresses from the Google Admin panel.

Google Chat app developers can now take advantage of new customisation options such as 🍟 ChipList widgets, 🌊 overflow menus, ↕ collapsible paragraphs and more. Buttons in your app cards will also use Google Material Design 3 for a more modern and consistent look across applications.

Google also introduced a new tool from CloudFuze that helps businesses migrate their data from Meta Workplace to Google Chat, following Meta’s decision to make Workplace read-only in September 2025 and fully unavailable in June 2026. The tool transfers existing communities, groups, members, posts, attachments and more into Google Chat whilst preserving the original timestamps.

A new visual density setting started to roll out at the end of the month, allowing you to customise your Google Chat experience. Whether you prefer a more spacious layout or a condensed view, you can tailor the look of your conversations to fit your style with two options: ↕️ “Comfortable” and ↔ “Compact”.

Google Docs

A short video of a user in Google Docs working on a file called “Cymbal on-the-go”. The document is set to pageless mode and on the left-hand side there is a panel with various document tabs and subtabs. The user clicks on the “Timeline” subtab which has a spiral calendar emoji next to it. Clicking the subtab opens the content within that tab on the right-hand side of the screen. After this, the user clicks on the plus icon at the top of the “Document tabs” menu to create a new tab. The user renames the new tab “Success metrics” and chooses the bar chart emoji from the emoji picker to visually represent the tab. Finally, the user drags the tab into the “Project overview” section which turns it into a subtab.

One particularly noteworthy feature for Google Docs this month was the launch of document 📑 tabs. Initially announced at Google Cloud Next ‘24, tabs allow you to organise your longer documents into smaller, more digestible sections. This can help bring structure to your files and make them easier to navigate. You can even add subtabs and use ✨ emoji to visually represent each section.

Google Docs has also improved its 🇳🇴 Norwegian spelling suggestions for both Bokmål and Nynorsk, making it even easier to ✍️ write accurately.

Google Sheets

A short video of a user inserting third-party smart chips into a table in Google Sheets. The table has four columns: “Item”, “Owner”, “Files” and “Status”. The user pastes a link from Canva into the first cell under the “Files” column. As they do this, a pop-up appears prompting the user to press “tab” to convert the link into a third-party smart chip. The user follows the prompt to replace the link with a Canva smart chip. The video then displays other third-party smart chips under the same column, including ones from Figma and Lucidchart. The user hovers over the Canva smart chip to reveal a visual thumbnail of the project and information about when it was last edited.

Third-party 🤓🍟 smart chips arrived in Google Sheets, allowing you to bring, view and interact with data from various applications, such as Asana, Canva and Lucid, directly within your spreadsheets. Already available in Google Docs, third-party smart chips can help enhance contextual understanding without needing to switch tabs.

💬 Comments, including the ability to assign a comment as an ✅ action item, are now available in client-side encrypted Google Sheets and Google Slides files. This addition makes it easier to collaborate across teams and projects in your spreadsheets and presentations whilst keeping sensitive files secure.

Google Drive

A short video showing Google Drive. The user searches “doc” in the Drive search bar and “Documents” appears as a suggested filter, which the user clicks on. The search query is now being filtered to show only results where the file type is a Google Docs document. The user then continues typing “draft” and the files that match both search criteria appear in a list.

In early October, 🔎🍟 filter chips were added to the Google Drive search bar, making it easier to refine your search criteria and find specific files quickly. You can filter by file 📄 type, 👤 owner or 📆 modification date and select multiple filter chips to narrow your search even further.

Later in the month, Google Drive 📦 inventory reporting became generally available and gained new features since its open beta in July. These enhancements ensure that reports adhere to data region settings and provide details about file creators, owners and permissions. Additionally, audit events are now recorded for configuration updates.

A screenshot of the redesigned video player in Google Drive. The screenshot shows an 8-minute video paused at the 3-minute mark, featuring a man smiling in the centre of the screen. Along the bottom edge, the updated video controls are displayed.

A smoother, upgraded 📽 video player also started rolling out in Google Drive to enhance the viewing experience. The redesigned video player features a modernised look in line with Google Material Design 3 and improved controls. It will look visually consistent with the upcoming Google Vids, Google’s collaborative video-creation tool powered by Gemini.

To simplify Google Drive Label creation, the Label Manager (available in the Google Admin panel) now separates single-select and multi-select options into distinct field types. These options were previously combined into a single setting.

Gmail

Gmail Q&A, a feature that enables you to ask Gemini questions about your inbox and find what you’re looking for, is now available on 🍏 iOS after launching on Android in August. With Gmail Q&A, you can ask Gemini to find specific details in your emails, summarise messages about a particular topic and much more.

A short video of a user composing an email in Gmail. The email with the subject line “Project Lumina sync?” contains a brief outline of the email that the user wants to send to Roger. An on-screen prompt to “polish” the email, a Gemini feature, appears and the user activates it; visual effects on the screen indicate that a draft is being composed before it appears in the body of the email, below the original draft. The user has the option to refine or insert the new draft text.

Towards the end of the month, new Gmail shortcuts started rolling out on web and mobile to make it quicker and easier to leverage the ✍️ “Help me write” and 💅 “Polish” features when composing, proofreading or refining an email. Available to Gemini users, “Help me write” and “Polish” can speed up the process of writing and responding to emails.

Gmail will now enforce 🔒 Data Loss Prevention (DLP) rules immediately, as the email is being typed, rather than waiting to scan the email only once it has been sent. This builds upon the current open beta for DLP in Gmail. You’ll see instant notifications about potential policy violations before you hit send to provide immediate feedback and help you better understand your organisation’s DLP policies. Admins can also configure DLP rules to only provide ⚠️ warnings, letting users send the email after self-assessing the risk, instead of automatically blocking the message or sending it for review.

Google Calendar

A screenshot of a user’s Google Calendar on the web with dark mode enabled. The background is in black and dark grey colours and the text is white.

Towards the end of the month, a visual update was introduced to Google Calendar on the web. The redesign brings it in line with Google Material Design 3 and lets you toggle between the current 🌞 light mode and the new 🌙 dark mode.

Google Forms

A short video of a user editing a Google Form titled “Customer satisfaction survey”. The user creates a new question, “Rate your experience at our store today”, and chooses “Rating” from the dropdown menu that shows all question types. The user confirms a five-point rating system and chooses stars as the rating icon; the other options are hearts or thumbs up. The user switches to the form preview mode to see what the form would look like as a respondent and they pick a rating of three stars.

October saw the launch of a new question type in Google Forms, allowing you to create customised rating questions with a scale (such as 1 to 5) and choose visual icons such as ⭐ stars, 💖 hearts or 👍 thumbs up for respondents to express their opinions.

Google Admin Panel

Google shared two updates that streamline the process of migrating user data from the Google Admin panel. The first update introduces a new tool in open beta that enables admins to migrate files, folders and access permissions from Microsoft OneDrive to Google Drive for up to 100 users at a time. This tool means users’ data can be transferred to Google Workspace at scale without the need for third-party solutions or on-site infrastructure.

The second update makes the email data migration tool, which was initially launched in open beta in March, generally available. This tool allows admins to move email data between Google Workspace accounts directly from the Google Admin panel. It has also gained support for migrations from Gmail and IMAP accounts.

Google also launched the Policy API in open beta, allowing admins to programmatically audit their organisation’s security settings and gain valuable 🔎 insights into configurations for applications including Google Meet, Chat, Docs and many more.

Admins will now get insights and recommendations relating to Context Aware Access, making it easy to deploy more secure policies. Admins will also receive quarterly emails with further insights and recommendations.

Gemini

The ✨ Gemini ✨ side panel, which helps you get more done across Google Workspace, added alpha support for 7 more languages: 🇫🇷 French, 🇩🇪 German, 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇯🇵 Japanese, 🇰🇷 Korean, 🇵🇹 Portuguese and 🇪🇸 Spanish.

Google announced that the Gemini app, where you have access to Gemini as a standalone experience, is becoming a core service for most tiers of Google Workspace. This change means extensions are available to more users, there will be new admin settings and the Gemini app will be covered under the same agreement as other Google Workspace applications.

A graphic showing which Google Workspace extensions are supported within Gemini Advanced. On the left, under the heading “Google Workspace”, it says: “Find, summarize, and get quick info from your content in Gmail, Docs, Drive, and more.” On the right there are six applications and their logos: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Keep and Google Tasks.

More Google Workspace 🧩 extensions will also be available in open beta for the Gemini App, including 📅 Google Calendar, 🏰 Keep and ✅ Tasks. Google Workspace extensions let Gemini pull data from additional sources – and perform actions in those applications – when responding to your prompts in the Gemini App.

NotebookLM

In mid-October, Google made some announcements about 📓 NotebookLM, the AI-powered research assistant. Firstly, 🎙 Audio Overviews, which are AI-hosted deep dive discussions about content in your notebook, can now be guided with prompts. For example, you can request focus on a particular topic or adjust the conversation for a certain level of expertise.

💡 To hear what an Audio Overview is like, listen to the below deep dive discussion between the AI hosts about Gecko’s blog post covering tips to look your best in Google Meet calls.

Secondly, you can now register for the NotebookLM Business 🧑‍✈ pilot program, an upcoming version of NotebookLM featuring enhanced features for 💼 businesses, 🎓 universities and other organisations using Google Workspace.

Catch up on September's updates

From the launch of Logitech Rally Bar Huddle in Google Meet appliance mode to annotations on Google Meet Hardware and cover images in Docs, September saw many significant updates across Google Workspace. Catch up on these announcements, and explore others that you may have missed, in our September 2024 update recap.

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