This official feed from the Google Workspace team provides essential information about new features and improvements for Google Workspace customers.
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Gemini-powered AI classification in Google Drive is now available in open beta.

By automating file identification and labeling across Drive, AI classification helps organizations enforce granular data loss prevention (DLP) policies at scale, establish retention rules, and utilize label metadata during audit investigations. This also becomes a critical aspect in elevating an organization’s security posture in the agentic era, preventing agentic workflows from accessing and acting autonomously on sensitive data. 

This feature leverages Gemini models to apply data classification labels to files in Google Drive. Previously, AI classification required admins to identify and manually label training files for the AI model to learn the types of data associated with each data classification level. With this new capability, Gemini models offer admins an alternative method for data classification that is faster and more efficient, eliminating the need for manual model training and replacing it with administrator-defined instructions.



In the Admin console, Gemini models interpret instructions, evaluate files, and apply appropriate data classification labels.


Administrators maintain full control of the Gemini-based data classification process. They select the label, provide Gemini with instructions, and scope the audience for the files being evaluated. For Gemini-labeled files, editors and owners of those files with the appropriate label permissions will have the opportunity to either review and accept, or modify the automatically-applied label. Audit logs capture when files are labeled, including any user acceptance or modification of a Gemini-applied label.



In the Admin console, once enabled, Workspace Admins can see metrics on the labels applied to files by Gemini.


Data classification is a critical activity for organizations that are conscious about data protection, compliance, and reporting. However, data classification can also be challenging to put into practice, particularly when it comes to accurately classifying files at scale. By using the new Gemini-based capabilities in AI classification for Drive, admins are able to achieve a higher degree of data classification accuracy at scale.

Rollout pace

Getting started

  • Admins: For customers on a supported product license, the option for configuring Gemini-based AI classification instructions will appear in the Workspace Admin Console under the Data Classification option in the Security section (Security > Access and data control > Data classification). Use our Help Center to learn more.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature.

Availability

  • Enterprise: Enterprise Plus
  • Education: Google AI Pro for Education
  • Other Editions: Frontline Plus

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Client-side encryption (CSE) provides organizations control over access to their confidential data, with customer controlled encryption keys and data that is indecipherable to third-parties, including Google. Google Drive now supports direct file previewing for CSE files. Previously, users needed to download encrypted non-native files to their local devices to view the contents. With this capability, authorized users can immediately preview encrypted content in their web browser without leaving Drive.

This feature streamlines productivity and bolsters security by eliminating unnecessary downloads. At launch, preview is supported only on Drive, and for:

  • Encrypted PDF documents
  • Encrypted Image file formats

Admins with eligible Workspace licenses can sign up for the beta program, which provides access to the feature.



Preview of an encrypted PDF, accessible in Drive

Getting started

  • Admins: Admins with eligible Workspace licenses can sign up for the beta program. We’ll provide more information on how to get started if you’re accepted.
  • End users: This feature is ON for users in domains that have registered for the beta program.

Availability

  • Enterprise: Enterprise Plus
  • Education: Education Standard and Plus
  • Other Editions: Frontline Plus, Assured Controls, Assured Controls Plus

Resources

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We are excited to introduce Room Display mode, a new dual-window experience for Google Meet on the web. Launching in beta, this feature is designed specifically for "Bring Your Own Device"  meeting spaces, where users connect a personal laptop to a shared external display, such as a TV or projector.



Joining in Room Display mode

Historically, setting up a meeting on a shared display (e.g. in a meeting room) meant manually dragging browser windows across screens, dealing with clunky display layouts, and risking showing your browsing windows. Room Display mode removes this complexity by automatically splitting your meeting interface into two dedicated views the moment you connect your device and join the call:

  • Shared View (TV/Monitor): A clean, distraction-free, entire-screen view on your external display. It displays remote participant video tiles and shared presentations edge-to-edge. You can choose to go full screen by clicking the full-screen window button.

Shared View (TV) in Room Display mode with and without and active presentation
  • Personal View (Laptop Controller): Your laptop screen becomes a private personal view and "control center" for the meeting. In addition to your persona
    l view of the active presentation, it houses the meeting controls, peripherals selection, presentation controls, the participant roster, chat panels, and your "Ask Gemini" panel. This ensures you can manage the meeting privately without displaying your browser window or personal workspace to the entire room.

Personal View (Laptop) in Room Display mode with an active presentation with speaker notes and with the Ask Gemini side panel open

Whether you’re hosting a team sync, leading a pitch, or watching a presentation, Room Display mode makes running meetings on a shared display and collaborating in hybrid environments more seamless and professional.

Note: This requires a Chromium-based browser (such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge) with Window Management permissions enabled.

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be available by default when a laptop running a Chromium-based browser is connected to an external display (set to Extended mode, not mirrored). Room Display mode will be highlighted as the main option to join the call when the laptop detects  a shared external display like a meeting room TV. To help us improve the feature, provide feedback via the thumbs up/down icons and the feedback link in the Personal View UI. Visit the Help Center to learn more about joining meetings with Room Display mode.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Business: Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Other Editions: Frontline Starter, Standard, and Plus; Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus; Nonprofits

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Admins can now bulk export client-side encrypted (CSE) Slides using Vault or Data Export (takeout), and then convert those exports into PowerPoint files. This allows your organization to retain complete ownership, access, and control of sensitive data in a highly portable format.

Eligible Google Workspace admins can sign up for the CSE Office Interop beta program, which provides immediate access to CSE compatible export, import, takeout and office editing features. Organizations who’ve previously signed up for the beta program should see this feature in their domains now.

Getting started

  • Admins: Admins with eligible Workspace licenses can sign up for the CSE Office Interop beta. We’ll provide more information on how to get started if you’re accepted.
  • End users: This launch has no impact on end users.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Enterprise: Enterprise Plus
  • Education: Education Standard and Plus
  • Other Editions: Frontline Plus, Assured Controls, Assured Controls Plus

Resources

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We’re excited to announce the beta release of a new, simplified way for very small and small-sized businesses to import their users from Microsoft to Google Workspace when setting up their Workspace account for the first time.

This new feature allows these businesses and educational institutions to automatically copy their existing Microsoft users into Google Workspace. Once you connect to Microsoft, the system automatically identifies users in your Microsoft account and prepares to add them in your new Google Workspace account. This feature significantly reduces the time and effort of switching from Microsoft and helps you get your organization up and running in no time.

You can complete the import in a single click after connecting to your Microsoft business account.




Additional details

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be available in the setup process for Google Workspace. Once you’ve verified your domain and activated your email records, you will find an option to import your users from Microsoft to Google Workspace before completing the setup. Visit the Help Center to learn more about importing business data during setup.
  • End users: This feature is for admins only.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Business: Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus 
  • Education: Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus
  • Other Editions: Frontline Starter, Standard, and Plus; Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus; Individual; Nonprofits; Cloud Identity Free and Premium
  • Education Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education; Teaching and Learning; Endpoint Education

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At Cloud Next ‘26, we announced a new suite of agent tools for Google Workspace, including a Workspace MCP server, command line interface (CLI), and remote MCP integrations. 

Today, we are opening the Workspace MCP server to public developer preview. As AI agents become a central part of how we work, they need a standardized way to access the right context and tools. The Workspace MCP server provides that bridge, allowing AI agents to safely tap into the richness of Workspace capabilities.

Workspace MCP server: Now in public developer preview

The Workspace MCP server allows developers to access a suite of dedicated tools to power agents interacting with Workspace data:

  • Gmail MCP: Profile access, drafting, searching, and read/write capabilities.
  • Drive MCP: File fetching, permissions management, listing, and uploading.
  • Calendar MCP: Finding available times and managing events.
  • Chat MCP: Finding conversations, searching messages, and reading/sending replies.
  • People dictionary MCP: Managing user contacts and accessing profile information.

Empower agents with a secure ecosystem

As these agents scale, we are committed to maintaining a healthy ecosystem by addressing the unique risks associated with large-scale agentic actions, such as API abuse and unintended large-scale data egress. To foster innovation while managing the potential impact of high-volume data access, we are introducing a standardized tiering model for all agent tools inclusive of our APIs in Workspace.

This model is designed to manage agent workflows at scale, providing a structure as application impact increases The framework is intended to maintain the agility of developers:

  • Empowering the community: We expect less than 1% of active Workspace developers will need to move beyond our standard usage tiers. This means the vast majority of our developer community can continue to build and innovate without friction.
  • Scalability with confidence: For those developers and agents that grow to serve millions of users, the model provides a clear, predictable path to scale safely, ensuring the performance and data integrity that enterprise customers expect.

Getting started

Rollout pace

  • Workspace MCP server: Gradual rollout starting May 1, 2026
  • Workspace API and MCP tiering: Updated usage quotas for new projects only will roll out starting May 1, 2026. We'll notify owners of existing projects at least 60 days before any changes go into effect to ensure a smooth transition.

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and developers

Resources

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We’re committed to continuously improving Sheets to ensure it is a powerful, responsive, and scalable spreadsheet tool for your needs. To that end, we’re announcing significant performance improvements across the entire Sheets experience, especially for larger data sets, making it faster than ever to import, analyze, and manage your data.

Some of the key Sheets journeys we’ve optimized to help you work with larger datasets more efficiently include:

  • Get started faster: You can now open and start working in large spreadsheets (1M+ cells) up to 30% faster. 
  • Rapid data analysis: You can now filter large spreadsheets (1M+ cells) up to 60% faster.
  • Easier formatting: You can now apply conditional formatting to large spreadsheets (1M+ cells) up to 60% faster.
These enhancements are part of our broader effort to ensure a smooth experience even as your spreadsheets grow in complexity.

Beta now available: Sheets capacity doubled to 20 million cells

Alongside faster analysis, we’re opening a new beta program to give users early access to doubled cell limits in Google Sheets—from 10 million cells to 20 million cells. This limit applies to new, existing, and imported files. Fill out the form to register your organization for the beta program and double Sheets limits.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts

Resources

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We are pleased to share that export capabilities are now available for client-side encrypted (CSE) Slides files. Beta users can "Download and decrypt" CSE Slides files and export their Slides as PowerPoint files, facilitating seamless interoperability between platforms. This launch includes high-quality conversions of core elements—such as text, styling, tables, images, and comments—from Slides to Microsoft PowerPoint format.

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature is ON by default for customers who have registered for the CSE Interop beta program. CSE customers can sign up for the beta program at any time to access the feature.
  • End users: This feature is ON for users in domains that have registered for the CSE Interop beta program.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Enterprise: Enterprise Plus
  • Education: Education Standard and Plus
  • Other Editions: Frontline Plus

Resources

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Organizations that use both Google Workspace and other calendaring systems, like Microsoft Outlook, can now more easily coordinate shared resources, such as rooms, projectors, or company cars. We are introducing an open beta that allows non-Google users to book Google Workspace resources directly from their preferred calendar service.

Google Workspace admins can grant specific non-Google users or entire non-Google domains permission to book Workspace resources. Once these permissions are configured in the Admin Console, non-Google users can reserve a resource by simply adding its email address to the calendar event guest list. If the resource is configured to auto-reply, it automatically accepts or declines the invitation based on its availability and sends an email notification to the organizer.

Additionally, for organizations using both Google Workspace and Microsoft Outlook, admins can configure Calendar Interop. This allows Outlook users to find and book Workspace resources by their name and view their availability before sending an invite.


Getting started

  • Admins: This feature is OFF by default and can be configured at the resource level in the Admin console. Admins can specify which non-Google users or entire domains are permitted to book specific rooms. Visit the Help Center to learn more.
  • End users: Once an admin has granted permission, non-Google users can book a room by adding the resource email as an attendee to their calendar event.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Business: Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise: Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Education: Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus
  • Other Editions: Frontline Starter, Standard, and Plus; Nonprofits

Resources

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We’re introducing data loss prevention (DLP) policies for Google Calendar in beta. Currently, DLP policies protect Calendar attachments such as Docs, Sheets, and Slides in meeting invites. To further expand our data protections, administrators can now prevent sensitive data from being shared in the event details for Calendar, including event title, location, and description. 

Key functionalities include: