Unlock AI Power: Key Google Workspace Updates for Administrators

Google Workspace continues to evolve, bringing more integrated artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to the forefront. For Google Workspace administrators, staying abreast of these developments is crucial for optimising organisational efficiency and ensuring secure, productive environments. This post details recent updates that enhance how AI is leveraged across various Workspace applications, providing more intelligent features and refined control for administrators.

Enhanced Accessibility for Ask Gemini in Google Meet

The power of Gemini is becoming even more accessible within Google Meet, with the "Ask Gemini" prompt now more prominently located for users. Initially introduced to bring intelligent assistance into meetings, this feature allows participants to quickly gain insights and catch up on discussions.

Previously requiring users to hover over an icon in the top right corner, the "Ask Gemini" prompt box has been moved to the bottom-left of the Google Meet web interface. This change aims to make the feature more discoverable and straightforward to use, fostering greater adoption and utility during calls.

The core functionalities of Ask Gemini in Meet remain unchanged. Users can still:

• Obtain a quick brief on the meeting's goals and topics.
• Receive a summary of key takeaways, decisions, and action items discussed.
• Catch up on missed content if they joined a meeting late, provided the "Take Notes for Me" option was enabled.

Admin Considerations: For organisations with Ask Gemini in Meet already enabled, this accessibility enhancement will be active by default. Administrators retain the ability to turn Ask Gemini in Meet on or off via the Admin Console, allowing for tailored deployment based on organisational policies.

Rollout and Availability: This update commenced its gradual rollout (up to 15 days for full visibility) on 26 May 2026 for both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains. It is available to customers on Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus licensing tiers.

Anomaly Detection in Connected Sheets

Connected Sheets, a powerful tool for analysing BigQuery data directly within Google Sheets, now features an integrated anomaly detection capability. This new function allows users to effortlessly identify critical irregularities and outliers within their time-series data without needing complex data science expertise or manual model training.

This intelligent feature is underpinned by advanced machine learning models, BigQuery ML and TimesFM, providing "zero-shot" analysis. This means users can immediately uncover actionable insights without prior model configuration or training. It also complements the recently introduced forecasting feature, offering a more comprehensive suite of predictive tools directly within the familiar Sheets environment.

Key aspects of this enhancement include:

• Intuitive Configuration: A user-friendly side panel guides the setup of anomaly detection analysis, removing the need for writing any code or complex query language.
• Clear Results Presentation: Findings are clearly rendered with new columns indicating whether an item is an anomaly (is_anomaly) and providing lower and upper bounds, simplifying the process of sorting, filtering, and interpreting results.
• Customisable Thresholds: Users can refine their analysis by specifying a time period, adjusting the anomaly probability threshold (defaulting to 0.95), and filtering input data as required.
• Automated Updates: In line with other Connected Sheets functionalities, anomaly detection extracts can be scheduled for automatic refreshes, ensuring insights remain current.

Admin Considerations: There are no specific administrator controls for this feature. End-users require appropriate permissions to a BigQuery project with billing enabled to utilise anomaly detection in Connected Sheets.

Rollout and Availability: This feature is currently available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts.

Granular Admin Controls for Workspace Studio

Workspace Studio serves as a platform for automating and integrating various tasks and workflows, often leveraging intelligent components. To provide administrators with greater oversight and flexibility, more granular controls have been introduced for Workspace Studio's "steps and starters."

These new controls enable administrators to define precisely which steps and starters individuals within their organisation can use to create automated flows. This management can be applied across entire Workspace services or to individual components. Such granular control is particularly beneficial for organisations planning a phased or controlled rollout of Workspace Studio capabilities, allowing them to manage adoption and ensure compliance effectively.

Admin Considerations: Workspace Studio starters and steps are set to "ON" by default. However, administrators can now disable these at the domain, organisational unit, or group level, providing fine-tuned management. If a step is disabled by an administrator, it will appear greyed out to end-users within Studio. Importantly, existing automated flows that utilise a disabled step will cease to function, and users will encounter an error.

Rollout and Availability: A full rollout for this feature (1-3 days for visibility) commenced on 26 May 2026 for both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains. It is available across a broad range of Google Workspace editions, including Business Starter, Standard, and Plus; Enterprise Standard and Plus; Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus; as well as Education Add-ons like Google AI Pro for Education and Teaching and Learning. Additionally, users with AI Expanded Access licences will benefit from higher usage limits for Workspace Studio starting 1 June 2026.

These ongoing enhancements underscore a continuous focus on integrating intelligent capabilities across Google Workspace, providing administrators with more powerful tools and greater control over their organisational environments.