Google Chat: make your workspace richer

12/07/2021

Table of contents

What’s changing

In 2020, Google launched Google Workspace as an integrated solution that provides everything you need to get things done, all in one place. Earlier this year, they introduced a host of innovations, including smart canvas, all aimed at helping you manage your time better and build deeper connections with each other as the future of your life. work continues to grow.

Google is announcing new enhancements coming to Google Chat to help teams do their best work in the world of hybrid work, as more people at Google begin returning to the office. In addition, Google will also introduce a more streamlined and flexible user interface that makes it easier for people and teams to stay organized, balancing focus and multitasking.

Later this year, Google will evolve the Rooms experience in Google Chat into Spaces, a dedicated place to organize people, topics, and projects in Google Workspace. In Spaces, you'll notice new features like:

Inline theme
Presence stats
Tasks assigned
Expressive reactions, custom statuses using emojis and GIFs
Improved content search on Spaces
Message Pin
User Roles and Moderation Tools
Explorable space

Spaces will also seamlessly integrate with Calendar, Drive, Tasks, and across Workspace becoming the new home to get more done together. In Spaces you will be able to:

Create and share documents
Parallel discussion and editing
View status from calendar
Run interactive polls
Live Workflow Integration with Bots

In times when you need more collaboration, you can easily convert your group chats into Rooms. In the future, you can convert group chats to Spaces when available.

Google Chat: enrich your workspace 1

The new experience will begin rolling out to all Gmail Chat users over the next few months to all Chat-enabled organizations, with new features being made available on an ongoing basis. Google will continue to provide updates on the Workspace Update Blog as these features become available.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why it’s important

Google Chat has become a big part of work over the past year, serving as a bridge for disparate colleagues to collaborate in real time. They hope these innovations will give distributed teams more space to share, making collaboration easier.

Additional details

In the coming months, Google will introduce a new streamlined and flexible user interface that makes it easier for people and teams to organize, balancing focus and multitasking. The new experience will feature a new left-hand navigation that shows important apps like Gmail, Chat, and Meet in one place.

This will make updating and navigating to important chats and important notifications easier, eliminating the need to switch between different apps.

Google Chat: enrich your workspace 2

Google Workspace customers interested in early access to these features, please express an interest here. If accepted into the program, they will contact you in the coming weeks to confirm and share next steps.

Getting started

Admins: Admins can enable Google Chat in Gmail so their organization can start using Rooms today, ensuring a seamless transition to Spaces when it becomes available.
End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about enabling or disabling custom statuses for Chat for your account, rooms and group chats in Chat, and creating rooms in Google Chat .