Google Workspace in 2026 is becoming more than Gmail, Docs and Meet with Gemini added on top.
Google is connecting company data, AI search, content generation and workflow automation. It has also launched new products such as Google Pics and made migrating from Microsoft 365 easier.
Here are 15 newer or lesser-known Google Workspace features worth enabling as of September 4, 2026.
Plan note: The requirements below focus primarily on Workspace Business and Enterprise editions. Some features are also available through Education, Frontline or Google AI plans.
First: check your Workspace AI settings
Several features below depend on Google Workspace smart features and Workspace Intelligence.
Users can check:
Settings → See all settings → General → Google Workspace smart features → Manage Workspace smart feature settings
Admins can manage AI context sources under:
Admin console → Generative AI → Gemini in Workspace → Workspace Intelligence sources - Turn on
Google says Workspace Intelligence respects existing permissions and doesn't use customer Workspace data to train its generative AI models or for advertising.
Google: Workspace Intelligence admin documentation
1. Google Pics adds native AI image editing to Workspace
Plan required: Business Standard or Plus; Enterprise Standard or Plus. Selected Google AI and Education plans are also supported.
Google launched Google Pics on September 1, 2026 as a collaborative AI image editor for Workspace.
Key features
- Generate images from text prompts.
- Select and edit individual objects.
- Edit or translate text inside images.
- Crop and resize images.
- Upscale images to 2K or 4K.
- Open images from Google Docs and Slides directly in Pics.
- Share and collaboratively edit images using familiar Workspace controls.
How does it help?
Pics gives marketing, sales and content teams an image-editing tool without forcing them to leave the Google ecosystem for common tasks.
It is particularly useful when a presentation or document already contains an image that needs changing. Instead of downloading it, editing it elsewhere and uploading it again, users can move directly into Pics.
How to enable and use it
Google Pics is on by default for eligible organizations, although admins can disable it.
Rapid Release rollout began September 1. Scheduled Release domains don't begin receiving it until September 15.
Google: Google Pics launch and availability
2. Give Gemini permanent Custom Instructions
Plan required: Generally Business Standard or Plus; Enterprise Standard or Plus, with selected Education AI plans also supported.
Gemini can remember recurring preferences and use them across supported Workspace applications.
Key features
- Save preferred writing styles.
- Tell Gemini to use UK or US English.
- Set preferred response length.
- Define formatting preferences.
- Reuse instructions across Gmail, Drive, Chat, Sheets and Slides.
- Update or remove saved preferences later.
How does it help?
People who regularly use Gemini often repeat instructions such as “keep this concise,” “use UK English” or “write in our standard reporting style.”
Custom Instructions remove some of that repetitive prompting and can make Gemini's output more consistent across different Workspace apps.
How to enable it
Gemini Menu → Settings → Personal Intelligence → Instructions for Gemini → Add
During the current rollout, Workspace admins may also need to enable:
Google Admin console → Generative AI → Gemini for Workspace → Gemini Beta features
Google's Help Center currently lists US/English restrictions for some accounts.
Visit here to start using Google Pics
Google: Custom Instructions help
3. Turn Docs and PDFs into narrated videos with Google Vids
Plan required: Business Starter, Standard or Plus; Enterprise Starter, Standard or Plus. Several Education and Nonprofit editions are also supported.
Google Vids can convert existing written material into an AI-generated video.
Key features
- Import Google Docs.
- Import Microsoft Word documents.
- Import PDFs.
- Generate a video script automatically.
- Create scenes and visual structure.
- Generate narration.
- Edit the finished result inside Google Vids.
How does it help?
This makes existing company documentation reusable.
A business could turn:
- an onboarding document into a training video,
- a product brief into sales enablement material,
- a report into a narrated executive summary,
- or a policy document into more accessible training content.
The important benefit is that teams can repurpose information they already have rather than creating each video from scratch.
How to enable it
Google Vids → File → Docs to Video → choose a Doc, Word file or PDF → Next
Review the generated script and voice before creating the video. No separate admin control is required.
Google: Convert documents into videos
4. Workspace Studio lets non-developers build AI agents
Plan required: Workspace Studio is available on Business Starter, Standard and Plus; Enterprise Standard and Plus. Some advanced Gemini actions require higher-tier AI access.
Google Workspace Studio lets users create AI-powered workflows across Workspace without traditional programming.
Key features
- Build multi-step automated workflows.
- Trigger actions from Workspace events.
- Let Gemini interpret or classify information.
- Send information between Workspace apps.
- Create workflows from natural-language descriptions.
- Use loops to process lists of items.
- Start from prebuilt templates.
- Test flows before activating them.
How does it help?
Studio can automate repetitive work that previously required Apps Script, an external automation platform or manual processing.
For example, a workflow could detect an incoming request, have Gemini categorize it, update a Sheet and notify the correct person in Chat.
That makes automation accessible to more employees, not just developers.
How to enable it
Admins allow the relevant Gemini/Studio capabilities. Users can then open Workspace Studio, choose a template or describe the workflow they want. It might not available to all countries.
Always review and test a flow before enabling it on important business processes.
Google: Workspace Studio getting-started guide
5. Workspace Intelligence gives Gemini context across your work
Plan required: Business Starter, Standard or Plus; Enterprise Starter, Standard or Plus, plus selected Frontline, Education and Nonprofit editions.
Introduced in April 2026, Workspace Intelligence lets Gemini use relevant information across supported Workspace applications.
Key features
- Use context from Gmail.
- Search information in Drive and Docs.
- Use Calendar context.
- Incorporate relevant Google Chat information.
- Respect existing Workspace permissions.
- Let admins enable or disable individual data sources.
How does it help?
Without context, AI assistants constantly need information copied into the prompt.
Workspace Intelligence lets Gemini understand which project, meeting, email or document you mean using information you already have access to.
That makes several other Workspace AI features significantly more useful.
How to enable it
It is generally on by default, but admins can control sources under:
Google Admin console → Generative AI → Gemini in Workspace → Workspace Intelligence sources
Gmail, Drive/Docs, Calendar and Chat can be controlled separately.
Google: Workspace Intelligence controls
6. Ask Drive questions instead of searching filenames
Plan required: Business Standard or Plus; Enterprise Standard or Plus, plus selected Education AI plans.
Google Drive can now use Gemini to answer questions about the information stored in your files.
Key features
- Search Drive using natural-language questions.
- Generate AI Overviews of relevant information.
- Summarize folders.
- Analyze multiple files together.
- Ask follow-up questions through Ask Gemini.
- Link answers back to source files.
How does it help?
Traditional Drive search works best when you remember the filename or keywords.
AI search is more useful when you remember the information but not where it was stored.
Instead of searching for “Q2 customer project final,” you could ask:
“What did we finally agree to deliver to this customer?”
Gemini can locate and synthesize relevant Drive content.
How to enable it
Google Admins need Gemini in Workspace in Drive enabled as shown in feature 5. Users also need Workspace smart features.
Then use natural-language Drive search or Ask Gemini.
7. Gmail AI Overviews can find answers buried in email
Plan required: Business Starter, Standard or Plus; Enterprise Starter, Standard or Plus. Frontline Plus is also supported.
Gmail can now answer natural-language questions using information from relevant emails.
Key features
- Ask questions about email history.
- Search by meaning rather than exact keywords.
- Summarize information across multiple messages.
- Surface relevant details from long conversations.
- Use Workspace Intelligence to understand context.
How does it help?
Email often contains important information that is difficult to retrieve later.
Instead of manually opening several threads, you could ask:
“What amount did we finally agree to pay the contractor?”
Gmail can attempt to find the relevant messages and summarize the answer.
How to enable it
Google Admins need Gemini in Gmail and Workspace Intelligence access to Gmail enabled (shown in featured 5).
Users also need Gmail and Workspace smart features turned on (as shown in the very beginning).
8. Gemini can build an entire Google Sheet
Plan required: Business Standard or Plus; Enterprise Standard or Plus, plus selected Education AI plans.
Gemini in Sheets can now construct far more than individual formulas.
Key features
- Generate spreadsheet structures.
- Create tables.
- Write formulas.
- Add charts.
- Create pivot tables.
- Categorize existing data.
- Summarize rows.
- Extract information from text.
- Perform multi-step spreadsheet edits.
How does it help?
Gemini can reduce the amount of setup needed before actual spreadsheet analysis begins.
Instead of creating a tracker manually, a user can explain what the spreadsheet should contain and let Gemini build the first version.
Fill with Gemini is also useful for repetitive tasks such as categorizing hundreds of rows or extracting structured information from text.
How to enable it
Enable Gemini for Workspace in Sheets and Workspace smart features (as shown in the very beginning).
Open Gemini in Sheets and use the Build workflow to describe the spreadsheet you need.
Generated formulas should still be audited before important financial or operational decisions.
Google: Build spreadsheets with Gemini
9. Gemini can generate an entire editable presentation
Plan required: Business Standard or Plus; Enterprise Standard or Plus, with selected Education AI plans also supported.
Gemini can now build an entire Google Slides presentation from a prompt.
Key features
- Generate multiple slides at once.
- Create a presentation outline.
- Use Drive files as source material.
- Match the style of an existing presentation.
- Generate text and visual layouts.
- Keep generated slides fully editable.
How does it help?
This moves Gemini beyond creating isolated slide content.
A team can provide internal reports, product documentation or research and ask Gemini to turn that source material into a first presentation draft.
Because the result remains editable in Slides, users can revise the structure rather than starting over.
How to enable it
Open Google Slides → Ask Gemini.
Describe the presentation, add Drive sources, review the generated outline and approve it before Gemini builds the deck.
Google: Generate complete presentations with Gemini
10. Docs can copy an existing writing style and formatting
Plan required: Business Standard or Plus; Enterprise Standard or Plus, plus selected Education AI plans.
Gemini can use another document as a reference for how new content should look and sound.
Key features
- Match the writing style of another document.
- Reuse tone and language patterns.
- Match document formatting.
- Use existing Drive files as references.
- Help summarize comments and feedback.
- Suggest revisions.
How does it help?
Organizations often want consistency across proposals, reports and internal documents.
Instead of repeatedly telling Gemini to “write in our company style,” users can give it a real reference document.
It can also reproduce document formatting, reducing repetitive cleanup after the first draft.
How to enable it
For writing style:
Google Gemini - Gemini Spark → Skills → Writing style → Add your instructions → Create → Edit it again → Upload a skill using docs
For formatting, use Match doc format and select a reference document.
Google: Personalized documents with Gemini
11. Google Meet can automatically take notes, even in person
Plan required: Business Standard or Plus; Enterprise Standard or Plus. Frontline Plus and selected Education AI plans are also supported.
Meet's Take notes for me creates a structured record of a meeting using Gemini.
Google expanded the feature in 2026 so it can also be used for some in-person and on-the-go meetings.
Key features
- Automatically generate meeting notes.
- Create summaries.
- Record key discussion points.
- Identify action items.
- Give late participants a “Summary so far.”
- Save notes into a Google Doc.
- Configure automatic notes for future meetings.
- Use note-taking for supported in-person meetings.
How does it help?
Meeting notes are useful but easy to forget or inconsistent when one participant has to write them manually.
Automatic note-taking allows attendees to focus more on the conversation while still creating a searchable record afterward.
It is especially useful for recurring internal meetings, interviews and project discussions.
How to enable it
During a meeting, choose Take notes for me.
Or configure it beforehand:
Google Calendar → Edit event → Add Google Meet video conferencing → Video call options (from settings gear icon) → Meeting records → Take notes with Gemini
Google warns that AI-generated notes can contain errors or omissions.
Google: Take notes for in-person meetings
12. Google Meet can translate someone's actual speech
Plan required: Business Standard or Plus; Enterprise Standard or Plus; Frontline Plus, plus selected Education AI plans.
Speech Translation goes beyond displaying translated captions.
Key features
- Translate spoken conversations in near real time.
- Output translated audio rather than only text.
- Attempt to preserve characteristics of the speaker's voice.
- Support selected language pairs.
- Allow meeting organizers to enable translation for participants.
How does it help?
For international companies, translated speech can remove more friction than captions alone.
Participants can listen to the conversation in another language rather than continually reading subtitles.
This could be particularly valuable for multinational team meetings, customer calls and international training.
How to enable it
During a supported Meet call:
Google Meet → Create a Meet → Click tripple dot menu → Meeting settings → Meet records → Select default spoken language → Transcribe the meeting
The admin setting is on by default for supported editions.
Google currently limits translation to supported language pairs and applies a 90-minute limit per meeting.
Google: Speech Translation in Meet
13. New Teams and OneDrive migration tools make switching from Microsoft easier
Plan required: Business Starter, Standard or Plus; Enterprise Standard or Plus, plus various Education, Frontline, Essentials and Nonprofit editions. Google's published availability does not include Enterprise Starter.
Google expanded its native migration tools in 2026 for companies moving away from Microsoft 365.
Key features
- Import Microsoft Teams channel messages.
- Migrate group chats.
- Migrate direct conversations.
- Import OneDrive files.
- Migrate supported file permissions.
- Manage migrations through the Workspace Admin console.
- Avoid relying on a separate migration product for supported scenarios.
How does it help?
Migration complexity can be a bigger obstacle to switching productivity suites than the features themselves.
A company may prefer Workspace but still stay with Microsoft because years of conversations, files and permissions are difficult to move.
Better native migration tooling lowers that barrier.
How to enable it
A Workspace super administrator goes to:
Google Admin console → Data → Data import & export → Data Import → Import data from Microsoft → Import → Connect your Exchange Online account → Connect
Connect the required Microsoft administrator account and configure the migration.
Google: Microsoft Teams migration announcement
14. Stop Calendar from flooding your inbox with RSVP emails
Plan required: Any Google Workspace plan. The feature is also available to Workspace Individual users and personal Google accounts.
Calendar now lets event organizers suppress individual guest-response emails.
Key features
- Stop “Accepted” emails.
- Stop “Declined” emails.
- Reduce automated RSVP notifications.
- Enable or disable the option per event.
- No administrator configuration required.
How does it help?
This is a small feature with an obvious benefit for anyone managing large meetings.
An organizer inviting 200 employees no longer needs their inbox filled with individual RSVP messages while attendance continues to be tracked in Calendar.
How to enable it
When creating or editing an event, disable:
Get an email when guests respond
Gmail Settings → See all settings → General → Google Workspace smart features → Workspace smart feature settings → Enable Smart features in other Google products
Once enabled, calendar invites sent via Google Calendar will display interactive Yes, No, or Maybe buttons directly at the top of the email.
No admin action is required.
One caveat: RSVP responses from some third-party calendars may no longer appear correctly in the Google Calendar event when response emails are suppressed.
Google: Suppress Calendar RSVP emails
15. Google Chat can hide a space's full member list
Plan required: Any Google Workspace plan.
Chat space owners can now restrict access to the complete membership list.
Key features
Choose whether the member list is visible to:
- Owners only.
- Owners and managers.
- All space members.
- Everyone in the organization.
How does it help?
This gives organizations another privacy control for spaces involving customers, vendors, communities or sensitive projects.
For example, a company may want customers to participate in the same Chat space without exposing a complete directory of everyone who has joined.
It is important to understand that this doesn't provide anonymity. Someone who posts in the space can still have their identity visible.
How to enable it
Open:
Google Chat → Select your Space → Open Space Settings from Dropdown → Manage members → Set role to Admin or Manager
Only owners and designated managers can view the list and members cannot.
This does not make participation anonymous: people who actively post can still have their identity visible.
Google: Chat member-list privacy controls
Which Workspace plan gets the most of these features?
There is a fairly clear pattern in Google's 2026 feature availability.
Business Starter now gets more AI than it used to, including Gmail AI Overviews, Workspace Intelligence, Workspace Studio and the new Vids document-conversion feature.
But Business Standard is the practical starting point if you want most of Google's newer Workspace AI capabilities. It adds the more substantial Gemini features in Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Meet, as well as Google Pics. Google's current Business pricing page similarly positions Standard as including Gemini across Gmail, Docs, Meet and other Workspace apps, while Starter's AI offering is more limited.
Business Plus includes these AI capabilities too, but its main reasons to upgrade are broader Workspace features such as additional storage, security, compliance and meeting functionality rather than unlocking most of the AI features in this list.
For larger organizations, Enterprise Standard or Plus covers nearly everything here. Enterprise Starter has more uneven AI availability, so organizations considering it should check individual feature requirements rather than assuming every Gemini capability is included.
The bigger Workspace shift
The most important change isn't simply that Gemini appears in more applications.
Google is increasingly connecting:
Company data → AI context → content generation → workflow automation
Workspace Intelligence supplies context. Gemini finds and interprets information. Docs, Sheets, Slides, Pics and Vids generate new material. Workspace Studio can automate what happens next.
For a business choosing a Workspace plan specifically for these newer capabilities, Business Standard looks like the current sweet spot: it is the lowest Business tier that unlocks nearly every major AI feature covered in this list.