New Watermarking in Google Meet Helps Protect Your Meeting Content

What’s changing 

Google Workspace customers with a Gemini add-on can now watermark presented content and video feeds in Google Meet. Watermarking in Google Meet will appear as a subtle text overlay that displays the meeting code and the email address of the viewer over the shared content and video feeds of participants. Using a watermark can help discourage unauthorized copying and sharing, protecting both users’ video images and content shared during meetings. Hosts and co-hosts can turn on watermarking at any time in the meeting. Once watermarking is turned on, it shows on all participants’ screens.

Additional details

Watermarking is available  to meeting participants signed into a Google account using the latest Chrome browser, Android or iOS apps, or Google Meet hardware devices. Only participants using supported browsers and apps will see video feeds when watermarking is turned on. 
Additionally, watermarking cannot be used when recording a meeting or live streaming a meeting. If you turn on a recording during a meeting, you’ll see a dialog box notifying you that watermarking stops when recording starts.

Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.End users: To turn watermarking, go to Host controls > Add a watermark. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to apply watermarks to your meeting.
Host controls > Add a watermark

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 3, 2024

Availability

Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons: 
Gemini Enterprise Gemini Education Premium AI Security AI Meetings & Messaging 

Resources

Additional iOS data exfiltration enhancement: account level data sharing between Google Workspace apps and non-Google Workspace apps on or off

What’s changing 

Admins can now enable content sharing on personal Workspace accounts while preventing data sharing from corporate Workspace accounts on iOS devices.

Additionally, admins can now prevent data sharing from unknown sources (typically non-Google Workspace apps) to personal Workspace accounts on Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Chat, and more, by setting a managed configuration
The {customer_id} is a unique customer ID that’s assigned to your account. You can find it in your Admin console at Account > Account settings > Profile.

Getting started

Admins: Blocking sending of work data to personal apps, including all non-Google Workspace apps on the iOS share sheet, will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the OU level. These settings can be configured in the Admin console under Devices > Mobile and endpoints > iOS settings > Data Sharing. Visit the Help Center to learn more about data protection on iOS devices. Use this article in our Help Center to learn more about how to set up the managed configuration, go to set up iOS apps with managed configurations.

End users: Sharing of data between Google Workspace apps and non-Google Workspace apps depends on your admin configuration. If you’re unable to share data between apps, you may see a warning message. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how your iOS device is managed.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on September 19, 2024

Availability

Available for Google Workspace:
Enterprise Standard and PlusEducation Standard and PlusEnterprise Essentials PlusFrontline StandardCloud Identity Premium

Resources

Create birthdays in Google Calendar

What’s changing 

Currently, Google Calendar automatically pulls in birthday information from Google Contacts. However, it is not currently possible to create birthday events directly in Calendar. 
To ensure a birthday is never missed, we’re introducing the ability to create and modify birthday events in Google Calendar on Android devices. 
For developers, newly created birthday events will be available in the Calendar API with the eventType “birthday.” Both Events.list and Events.watch will support the “birthday” event type filter and return “birthday” events by default. Only a subset of the event properties will be supported for birthday events. To learn more, see our developer guide about working with the birthday event type.

Who’s impacted

End users and developers 

Additional details 

Birthday events do not support all event properties. If you’re using the Calendar API, we recommend reviewing your code so you don’t apply any non-supported properties. 
Creating dedicated birthday events in Google Calendar will also become available on web and iOS devices in the future. 

Getting started 

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing birthdays on your calendar. Developers: Use our developer guide about working with the birthday event type. 

Rollout pace 

Web: 
Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 19, 2024Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 9, 2024 
Mobile: 
Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 24, 2024 

Availability 

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

Resources 

Empowering Google Workspace customers to take control of their emissions with Electricity Maps

What’s changing

To help our customers continue to understand and measure the carbon intensity of their cloud computing, we have partnered with Electricity Maps to provide hourly emissions data within the Carbon Footprint report. Since we launched the Google Workspace Carbon Footprint report at Cloud Next 2023, we have continued our collaboration with Electricity Maps to further help users understand their emissions. Directly within the Admin console, admins can track the carbon footprint and emissions of using Google Workspace, down to specific tools such as Google Meet, Gmail, Google Docs, and more. 

We’ve also added a new admin role for accessing Carbon Footprint reports. Previously, only Workspace admins with reporting privileges had access to the carbon footprint dashboard. However, we know our customers have specialists, such as a dedicated Sustainability team, who rely on this information to inform their work. Now, admins can grant access to the Workspace Carbon Footprint report to select users by creating a custom role

Who’s impacted

Admins

Why it’s important

Cloud computing has immense significance for powering global business operations and innovation. But, in a world facing the accelerating impacts of climate change, it is increasingly important to keep an eye on its environmental impact. The dynamic and global nature of cloud computing creates challenges for precisely measuring its emissions and requires granular data that captures the carbon emissions of electricity at every hour in locations around the world. Partnering with Electricity Maps gives our customers a way to monitor their cloud emissions over time by product — giving IT teams and developers the high quality metrics they need to monitor, improve, and reduce their carbon emissions.

Electricity Maps gathers real-time and historical power generation and power exchange data from multiple sources around the globe, calculating the hourly consumption mix available on the grid and its carbon intensity. Electricity Maps follows a highly granular approach, combined with a transparent and scientific methodology and a strict collective vetting process of their open-source community. This guarantees high-quality and trustworthy data that aligns with Google’s ambition for a realistic and science-backed perspective on climate impact. For maximum transparency, emissions can be viewed on either location-based or market-based Scope 2 accounting standards. Location-based emissions show the emissions linked to the actual electricity used for the operations, whereas the market-based emissions represent emissions from the purchased electricity, including Google’s annual renewable energy purchases.  More information about the methodology behind Google’s Workspace and Cloud Carbon Footprints can be found here

Additional details

More about Google’s sustainability commitments
In 2020, we set a goal to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy—every hour of every day on every grid where we operate—by 2030. We continue to make product and operational improvements to reduce environmental impact and we’re sharing technology, methods, and funding to enable organizations around the world to transition to more carbon-free and sustainable systems — see here for more information about our sustainability commitments.
Google uses the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the global standard for carbon accounting to generate the Workspace Carbon Footprint reports. We recommend that admins familiarize themselves with the GHG terminology — you can find more information in our Help Center or the video below.

Getting started

Admins: You can find your Carbon Footprint report in the Admin console under Reporting > Carbon footprint. Visit the Help Center to learn more about the Workspace Carbon Footprint.

Rollout pace

Availability

Available to all domain verified Google Workspace customers

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – September 6, 2024

1 New update

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.

Improved user experience for Google Meet on Android devices
If you’re joining a Google Meet call from Android phone, tablets or large screen devices, you’ll now see a more streamlined, space-efficient experience with edge-to-edge video. We’ve expanded the video feed to encompass spaces where there were previously margins around the video feed. This helps provide a richer, more immersive viewing experience. You’ll also notice a sleeker user interface for meeting controls, and clearer indicators for information such as the meeting title. | Rollout to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains is complete. | Available now for all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about joining a meeting.

Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.
Gemini (gemini.google.com) now shows related content links in its responses 
You can now access additional information on topics directly in Gemini’s (gemini.google.com) responses to your prompts. Specifically, you’ll see links to related content in responses to fact-seeking prompts — you can click the arrow chips to dive deeper into the topic. If you have a Gemini for Workspace license and Google Workspace extensions in Gemini are enabled, Gemini will also now include inline links to relevant emails referenced in responses where the Gmail extension is used. | Learn more about related content links shown in Gemini.
View your most relevant Google Drive folders and files on a single page 
You will now see a combined, unified view for file and folder suggestions on the Drive homepage that leverages machine learning to help you find and organize your most relevant content faster and intuitively. | Learn more about the view in Drive.
Empowering Google Workspace customers to take control of their emissions with Electricity Maps
To help our customers continue to understand and measure the carbon intensity of their cloud computing, we have partnered with Electricity Maps to provide hourly emissions data within the Carbon Footprint report. | Learn more about Electricity Maps. 

Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.

Scheduled Release Domains: 
Rapid and Scheduled Release Domains: 

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).  

Gemini reports now include user-level usage, including app usage insights

What’s changing 

We’re incorporating additional data in Gemini reports to help our customers gain a deeper understanding of Gemini usage and adoption across their organizations. 
Gemini reports now include user and app level Gemini usage and adoption data based on the last 28 days of usage. These insights can help admins identify power users in their organization, whom they can tap into for practical use cases and best practices, which can then be shared broadly with other users to drive adoption. Identifying users with lower adoption rates is equally important and can provide helpful context for creating training, change management programs and materials, and more. 

From Menu > Generative AI > Gemini Reports > User-led usage you can track active Gemini usage days and how that usage is spread across various apps. You can also export this information for further analysis.

As of August 22, usage of gemini.google.com is now captured in the org-level usage portion of the report under the “Chat with Gemini” label, as well as in the new user-level usage reports. Including gemini.google.com usage and adoption information provides a more complete picture of how users are interacting with all Gemini tools across Workspace.

Gemini.google.com adoption data can be found under the “Chat with Gemini” label. Data reported as of August 9, 2024
Note: Gemini reports are denoted as ‘beta’ as we continue to optimize reporting functionality based on customer feedback. These are subject to the “Pre-General Availability Offerings Terms” section of the Google Workspace Service Specific Terms”

Getting started 

Admins: Visit the Help Center to learn more about reviewing Gemini usage in your organization.End users: There is no end user impact or action required. 

Rollout pace 

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on September 9, 2024 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons: 
Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium 

Resources 

Google Cloud Directory Sync now complies with your conflicting accounts management settings

What’s changing 

When Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS) attempts to create new users, it may encounter unmanaged accounts that conflict with the accounts it’s attempting to create. In these instances, GCDS will now comply with the conflicting accounts management settings specified in the Admin console. This update helps reduce the time spent migrating user accounts to business accounts, helping to accelerate the adoption of Google Workspace and Google Cloud. Visit the Help Center for specific information on how GCDS will handle conflicting accounts based on your configured settings

Getting started 

Admins:
Google Cloud Directory Sync will automatically respect your existing Admin console settings for handling conflicting unmanaged accounts. We do not recommend turning this feature off in GCDS, rather you should configure these settings as you see fit in the Admin console. Visit the Help Center to learn more about handling conflicting unmanaged accounts with Google Cloud Directory Sync, as well as unmanaged accounts in general. End users: Depending on your admin configuration: You’ll be invited to transfer your account — if accepted, your admin will have the ability to manage your account. If you do not accept the request, your admin may replace your unmanaged account with a managed one. In that case, you’ll receive a new @gmail.com address and retain your content in this unmanaged, personal Google account. 

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for all Google Workspace customers 

 Resources 

Access and sort shared files more easily in Google Chat conversations

What’s changing 

Earlier this year, we improved upon the file management experience in Google Chat spaces by creating the Shared tab, a central place to manage all conversation-related artifacts including files, links and media. Today, we’re excited to announce that the Shared tab is now available in 1:1 direct messages and group messages, enabling easier collaboration across all conversation types. 

Who’s impacted 

End users 

Why you’d use it 

The Shared tab provides a centralized and visible method to access shared content shared within a conversation. 

Additional details 

Using the new sort drop-down, you can narrow down the list of documents displayed based on category (file, link, media) or date shared. 

Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. End users: At the top of a Google Chat message, you will see the following tabs: Chat and Shared. Upon clicking Shared, you will see three sections: Files, Links and Media. Visit the Help Center to learn more about sending & sharing files in Google Chat messages

Rollout pace 

Web: 
Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 10, 2024 Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 23, 2024 
Android & iOS: 
Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 16, 2024 

Availability 

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

Resources 

Google Meet Add-ons SDK is now generally available

What’s changing 

We’re pleased to announce that beginning today, the Meet Add-ons SDK is now generally available for the web. This SDK allows developers to iframe their app into Meet, and lets meeting participants interact with the app’s content directly inside the Meet canvas. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins, end users, and developers 

Why it matters 

The Add-ons SDK expands Meet’s existing platform capabilities, providing the opportunity for developers to build interactive and collaborative experiences for their users in Google Meet which they can find and install from the Google Workspace Marketplace. These experiences allow for users to launch, install, and engage with the app’s content during their meetings, all without ever leaving Google Meet. Examples of already built add-ons include whiteboarding experiences with Figjam, Lucidspark and Miro; note taking experiences with Read Notetaker; and also polling and surveying experiences via Polly. 
Add-ons can be displayed in two ways during a meeting: 
The main stage allows apps to be the focal point of a meeting experience, unlocking the opportunity for add-on users to supercharge collaboration while in a meeting. The side panel allows users to do actions such as share data, take surveys, or update records and notes while keeping the meeting and the discussion with other participants the focal point of this experience. 

Additional details 

The Google Workspace Marketplace automatically respects any controls that have been configured by admins, including whether their users can download and install add-ons. Additionally, all apps on the Marketplace have been reviewed and approved by the Google Marketplace team before they’re published. 

Getting started 

Admins: The availability of Google Meet Add-ons in meetings can be controlled through the Google Meet Admin Controls. Visit the Help Center to learn more about admin controls for Add-ons. Developers: Our Developer Documentation has more information about using the Meet Add-Ons SDK. End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about using add-ons with Google Meet. Meeting hosts can control the availability of add-ons during meetings by going to Host Controls (lock icon) > Meeting Activities > Let contributors share add-on activities. Refer to this announcement on the Workspace Updates blog for more information. 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

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

Resources 

Improving the Google Workspace Marketplace app publishing experience with Drafts

What’s changing

Developers can create apps for the Google Workspace Marketplace that automate tasks, integrate Google Workspace with third-party products, and enhance communication and collaboration. 
To improve upon the publishing experience, we’re excited to announce that developers can now make changes to their app listing, save them as a draft, and send the draft version to review. This will allow developers to preview changes and share drafts with specific users to help with validation before publishing a listing. 

Who’s impacted 

Developers 

Why you’d use it 

This update allows developers to test and preview their Google Workspace Marketplace app listing prior to publishing, which enables feedback collection and ultimately makes updating an app listing much easier. 

Additional details 

While changes are under review in the draft state, the original app listing remains available on the Google Workspace Marketplace. 

Getting started 

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about Google Workspace Marketplace and getting started as a Marketplace app admin. Developers: Visit the developer resources to update your app listing with drafts, learn how to develop apps and add-ons for Google Workspace, and how to make your apps and add-ons available in the Marketplace. 

Rollout pace 

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 12, 2024 

Availability 

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

Resources