Join meetings as a guest without a Google account on mobile devices

What’s changing 

You can now quickly join a meeting as a guest without signing into a personal or work Google account or creating a new Google account. This functionality already exists for meetings on the web and, by expanding to mobile, guests now have greater flexibility for joining Meet meetings on the go. 

To join as a guest, you need to be on the Calendar invite for the meeting or have been provided the meeting code or the meeting link beforehand. Before you join the meeting, you’ll be prompted to enter your name and “knock” (aka ask to join the meeting) to be admitted. Once a meeting host or co-host accepts your knock, you’ll jump right into the meeting.

Getting started

Admins: Allowing meeting guests can be turned on or off at the domain level. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing Meet settings.

End users: Meeting hosts: You can also set your Meeting access type as “Open”, meaning anyone with a meeting link can join your meetings — no one has to knock.Guests: Visit the Help Center to learn more about joining a video meeting without a Google account

Rollout pace

iOS: Available now.Android: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 17, 2024

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers, Google Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.

Resources

Combine multiple video effects, improve lighting and audio in Google Meet

What’s changing 

We’re launching three new features to personalize your appearance in Google Meet. Specifically, we’re adding: 
Combine multiple video effects on web and mobile: You can now combine a background effect with a filter effect to create a more dynamic, fun experience. This gives you the flexibility to find the right mix of effects that will represent you best during your meetings. The new layer icon on your self view tile can be used to keep track of which effects you’re using and remove one or all effects at once.

Combining effects using Google Meet on the web
Combining effects using Google Meet on a mobile device

You’ll also notice a brand new user interface for effects. The streamlined design makes it easier for you to discover and apply various features. Specifically, you’ll notice effects grouped by category:
Backgrounds: Backgrounds are now organized into categories based on the type of scene you are looking for, such as new backgrounds, blurred backgrounds, your uploaded or company uploaded background, and more.Filters: Sort through filters by category, including funny filters, accessories, costumes and characters.Appearance: Adjust your appearance as needed by improving your lighting, framing, and video quality.

Studio lighting on web: Available with the Duet AI for Google Workspace Enterprise add-on, the new studio lighting feature can be used to simulate studio-quality lighting. You’ll be able to adjust the lighting position, brightness, and color to look your best. Note that for this initial launch an eligible device is required to use this feature.


For illustrative purposes only — to use Studio Lighting, go to settings > video > studio lighting.
Studio sound: This feature will automatically improve poor audio quality from typical bluetooth headsets and dial-in participants by using AI to recreate higher audio frequencies. Currently, this feature is available for meetings on the web and dial-in, with support for the mobile Meet app coming in the coming weeks — we’ll share an update on the Workspace Updates blog at that time. This feature is available with the Duet AI for Google Workspace Enterprise add-on.

Studio sound will use AI to improve audio quality.

 

Getting started

Admins: Existing admin controls still apply. Visit the Help Center to learn more about allowing users to apply backgrounds and special effects.End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about combined effects and studio lighting.Studio sound is automatically active for dial-in and web when noise cancellation is enabled.

Rollout pace

Combining multiple video effects
Web availability: 
Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 17, 2024Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 29, 2024
Mobile availability: 
Rapid Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on January 16, 2024 for iOS and Android devices.

Scheduled Release domains: For Android devices: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 17, 2024For iOS devices: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 17, 2024

Studio lighting  
Web availability:
Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 17, 2024Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 29, 2024
Studio sound 
Dial-in availability: Available now. Web availability: Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) beginning on January 17, 2024

Availability

Combine multiple video effects:
Available to all users. The availability of specific video effects is based on your specific Google Workspace edition and admin policy

Studio lighting and sound:

Available for customers with the Duet AI for Google Workspace Enterprise add-on. Note that for this initial launch an eligible device is required to use Studio lighting.

Resources

Star messages in Google Chat on mobile

What’s changing

Last November, we introduced starred on web, an additional shortcut in the redesigned Google Chat navigation panel that helps you stay on top of your most important messages. Today, we’re excited to announce this is now available on Android and iOS mobile devices. 

Getting started 

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. End users: To star a message, longpress it and click star. You can unstar a message from the original message or unstar messages from the shortcut. Starring messages is unavailable in existing spaces organized by conversation topic (legacy threaded). Learn about the upgrade from conversation topics to in-line threading in spaces. Visit the Help Center to learn how to star messages in Chat. 

Rollout pace 

Android: 
Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 19, 2024 
iOS: 
Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 16, 2024 

Availability 

Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Resources 

Managed reported Google Chat content from the new moderation tool in the Admin console

What’s changing

We’re introducing a centralized location for reviewing and taking action on reported Google Chat content in the Admin console under Apps > Google Workspace > Moderation, alongside the email quarantine tool for Gmail. Here can be found an overarching view of active and resolved reports, as well as additional information and context about reported messages, allowing for more informed decisions to be made.

Super admins will have access to the moderation tool and can also assign users the new “Moderate Chat content report” privilege. The new privilege can be assigned to users in your organization who are best suited to review Chat content, helping to reduce the burden on super admins.

Who’s impacted

Admins and designated moderators 

Why it’s important

Google Chat is key to accelerating productivity and collaboration — content reporting and moderation helps ensure that information exchanged across Chat is safe and appropriate.  When a report is submitted by users, the moderation tool can be used to:
See all reports associated with the message (including those resolved in the past).Note that resolved reports will be removed from the Moderation tool after 180 days.Review the edit history of a message and conversation transcript, including up to five messages posted before the reported message.Conversation details provide information about the type of conversation (direct messages, group direct messages, or Spaces) with number of participants, space managers, guidelines, etc.
Using this information, combined with organization policies, admins and moderators can choose the best course of action, whether that be deleting a specific message or deleting an entire space before resolving the report. Additionally, moderators can add comments to the report for prosperity should the content require further auditing in the future.
The moderation tool can be accessed in the Admin console by selecting Apps > Google Workspace > Moderation.
Upon selecting a reported message, you’ll see a variety of information including conversation details and other reports for the message.
You can select “Show more” from the “Reported message” section to view up to five messages sent prior to the reported message.

Additional details

As part of this change, the moderation tool will also include a tab for managing quarantined Gmail messages. Visit our Help Center for more information regarding setting up email quarantine and the admin privileges required to manage quarantined messages. The Gmail tab is available to all Google Workspace customers.

Getting started

Super Admins: The moderation tool will be available by default and can be accessed in the Admin console by going to Apps > Google Workspace > Moderation or directly from this link: admin.google.com/ac/moderation. To view Chat content in the Moderation tool, you must enable content reporting for Google Chat. You can also assign the “Moderate Chat content report” privilege to other users in your organization.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) beginning on January 22, 2024

Availability

Google Chat content reporting and moderation is available to Google Workspace Enterprise, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard and Education Plus customers

Resources

For Google Meet Hardware, ‘Auto-Update Expiration (AUE)’ will now be referred to as ‘end of Meet support’

What’s changing

We’re making changes to the terminology that refers to  when a Meet hardware device is no longer supported:

‘End of Meet support date’ replaces Auto-Update Expiration (AUE) in the Meet hardware Help Center.The Admin console will show ‘end of Meet support’ instead of ‘EOL (end of life)’ in both device information and fleet overview pages.The field name for “end of life” in Admin console’s CSV downloads will change from “eolDate” to “endOfMeetSupportDate”

End of Meet support as indicated in the device information page


End of Meet support as indicated in the Google Meet hardware fleet overview

Additional details

The end of Meet support date for Intel 10th generation devices have been extended from June 2028 to June 2029 to reflect their continued availability.

Getting started

Admins: Visit the Help Center to learn more about the Google Meet hardware auto-update policy and end of Meet support.End users: There is no end user impact or action required.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on Jan 29, 2024

Availability

This update impacts all Google Workspace customers with Meet hardware devices. 

Resources