From the introduction of spaces, huddles, voice messages, and more, Google Chat has added major new features and transformed significantly over the past several years. As a result, usage reports for Google Chat are evolving as well. Beginning today, we’re pleased to introduce new, information-rich usage reports to help Workspace administrators understand how their teams are using Google Chat. 

The charts being added are: 

• User activity: the number of users based on two types (engaged and communicating) in the last 1 day and 28 days over a period of the last 180 days. 
• “Engaged” users: these users read conversations. These users may, but are not required to, send messages and react to messages.
• “Communicating” users: these users send or react to messages. The number of communicating users is a subset of engaged users. 
• Messages sent: the number of messages sent by users of your organization in 1 day, 7 day, and 28 day period over a period of the last 180 days. 
• Messages sent by conversation type: the number of messages sent in 1 day in direct messages, group and space conversations over a period of the last 180 days. 
• Messages sent by type: the number of messages sent in 1 day broken out by message type: regular message, voice or video, huddle over a period of the last 180 days. 
• Messages sent with attachment: the number of messages sent with or without attachments in 1 day over a period of the last 180 days.
• Messages sent to conversations with external participants: the number of messages sent to conversation that include or may include users external to your organization over a period of the last 180 days.
• Created spaces*: the number of spaces created by users of your organization in 1 day over a period of the last 180 days 
• Active spaces*: the number of spaces owned by your organization in 1 day over a period of the last 180 days.

Who’s impacted

Why it’s important

Additional details

We know there are scenarios in which you may want to reference a person with an @mention without adding them to a conversation in Google Chat. Starting today, when mentioning a user that is not already in the conversation, you will have the option to add them and send the message, or just send the message without adding them. 

We’re also adding visual improvements by rendering @mentions as smart chips, which brings them more in line with Drive chips in Chat and smart chips across Workspace. With simplified colors, your personal mentions still stand out the most and will be easily spotted in conversations, Home and Mentions.

On web, hovering on the chip will show more information about the person and clicking the chip will start a new 1:1 direct message with them. 

End users 

This feature reduces friction for users by making it easier to provide context when composing messages. 

• Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
• End users: 
• On web, go to chat.google.com or Chat in Gmail and type “@[a person’s name or email address]” to mention them. This functionality is supported across 1:1 direct messages, group direct messages, and spaces. 
• Note that you can only add members to a conversation in group direct messages and spaces. In 1:1 direct messages, when you mention someone they are treated as a reference and not added directly. 
• This functionality will rollout on Android and iOS devices in Q1 2025. 
• Visit the Help Center to learn more mentioning someone or adding someone to a message.

• Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on December 12, 2024 
• Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on January 14, 2025 

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

• Google Help: Mention someone or add someone to a message

Today, we’re announcing that NotebookLM Plus, our newest and most advanced version of NotebookLM, is available to Gemini for Google Workspace customers. In addition to what’s already included with NotebookLM, which we introduced in September, this enhanced version allows users to: 

• Get 5x more Audio Overviews, queries, notebooks, and sources per notebook 
• Customize the style and length of their notebooks 
• Create shared notebooks for their team and get usage analytics 
• Use with confidence knowing their sources, queries and responses stay within their organization 

Admins and end users (18+) with a Gemini for Google Workspace add-on or Gemini Education add-on. 

• NotebookLM Plus is available in 180+ regions where Gemini API is available and currently supports 35+ languages. For Audio Overviews, while you can upload sources from all supported languages, the spoken audio is currently only available in English. 
• See the ‘Getting started’ section below to learn more about adding Gemini to your Google Workspace plan. 

NotebookLM Plus supercharges productivity and collaboration through AI that’s grounded in the information you provide. For example: 

• Sales teams can add their product roadmap and feature specs, competitor benchmarking analysis, customer audio interviews, and market research to NotebookLM Plus. As a result, NotebookLM can help you prepare for customer meetings by creating an account plan to help your team find information faster and better engage with customers. 
• Marketers can use NotebookLM Plus to help summarize customer trends and purchase behaviors, draft communications, create campaign briefs, and more–all based on market research, customer segmentation analysis, and marketing roadmaps. 
• Educational customers can add their district’s strategy plan, education standards, lecture notes and/or course readings to get real-time summaries, guided lesson plans, discussion questions, quizzes and more. They can also generate audio overviews to take learning on the go and make content more accessible, digestible and engaging.

NotebookLM Plus is an Additional Service and is covered under the NotebookLM Plus for Workspace Additional Terms of Service.

As a Gemini for Workspace user of NotebookLM Plus, your uploads, queries and the model’s responses are not used to train models and are not reviewed by humans. Your data remains your data and any files uploaded, queries and responses are not shared outside your organization’s trust boundary. 

Users can only upload sources from Workspace that they have permission to access. Furthermore, they can control who has access to their notebooks and set more granular permissions within each. Notebooks can only be shared within your organization. 

• Admins: 
• Admins must turn on NotebookLM as an Additional Service if new services are not set to turn on automatically for end users. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning on or off additional Google services. 
• NotebookLM Plus is available in 180+ regions where the Gemini API is available. If you are a Workspace customer without the Gemini add-on, you can access NotebookLM Plus today by adding Gemini to your Google Workspace plan. 
• End users: 
• Once NotebookLM service is enabled by your admin, go to notebooklm.google.com to start using it. 
• Visit the Help Center to learn more about NotebookLM Plus. 

Rollout pace

• Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on December 13, 2024 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons: 

• Gemini Business 
• Gemini Enterprise 
• Gemini Education 
• Gemini Education Premium 

Resources 

• Google Workspace Admin Help: Turn on or off additional Google services – Google Workspace Admin Help 
• Google Help: Get started with NotebookLM and NotebookLM Plus

In continuing our effort to ensure Google Chat is your home for collaboration in Workspace, especially for global teams, we’re excited to introduce translate for me in Google Chat. 

As one of the most requested Gemini enhancements in Chat this year, translate for me will automatically detect and translate over 120 languages to a user’s preferred language. Rather than requiring users to navigate outside of Chat to translate a message, this update reduces friction and improves collaboration with colleagues, partners and customers in other parts of the world. 

• Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
• End users: 
• Automatic translation via translate for me will be OFF by default. Turn ON the automatic translation setting at chat.google.com (web) or on your Android or iOS device by going to Settings > Automatic Translation > select the box for ‘Translate messages to your preferred language.’ 
• This feature translates messages received into your preferred language (based on your Google account settings). Please allow up to 24 hours for this feature to update languages when languages are changed in your Google account settings. 
• These translated messages are viewable only to you. 
• Automatic translation only applies to message content inside the conversation stream and does not show up on message snippets in Home or notifications. 
• Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Automatic Translation in Chat.

• Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on December 13, 2024, with expected completion by January 7, 2025 
• Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 15, 2025 

Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons: 

• Gemini Business and Enterprise 
• AI Meetings and Messaging 

• Google Help: Use Automatic Translation in Chat

We’re excited to announce that we’ve made updates to the Google Chat integration with GitHub, a cloud-based platform that enables users to store, share and collaborate with others to write code. With these updates users can expect: 

• Streamlined notification cards with key details from Github, such as issues, pull requests and comments. 
• Enhanced repository and pull request subscription options (open/merge/close, comments, CI pipeline and test results). 
• Clearer overview of GitHub links with richer link previews. 
• Options to configure multiple repositories within a single space. 

Admins can install the Github app on their users’ behalf. End users need a GitHub account to use this app, and can also search for the app in the + New Chat menu to get updates via a DM with the bot. | Rollout to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains is complete. | Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts. | Visit the Help Center to learn how to set up the GitHub app in Chat. 

Late last year, we made updates to the Google Drive scanner on mobile devices, and recently announced the option to apply black & white filters to Drive scans and save scanned files as PDFs or JPEGs. This week, we’re excited to introduce an additional improvement to the scanner experience on Android devices. Now, with the help of auto enhancement, Drive’s document scanner will digitize paper documents into higher quality images much faster. Depending on the document, auto enhancement will perform actions like white balance correction, shadow removal, contrast enrichment, auto sharpening, light improvement, and more. | Rolling out to Rapid Release domains now, with expected completion by January 2, 2025; launch to Scheduled Release domains planned for January 6, 2025. | Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about scanning files with your mobile device.

You can now present content via a wired HDMI connection when using Poly devices with Google Meet, specifically Poly Poly Studio X30, X50, X52, and X70 devices. This update provides another option for sharing high-quality video and audio content during your meetings. | Available to all Google Workspace customers. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about presenting using an HDMI cable.