Google continues to introduce new Cloud and Workspace features designed to help you work smarter, collaborate more effectively, and save time. Explore the latest updates, including new AI-powered capabilities and productivity enhancements that can streamline your daily work at Berkeley Lab. Also, consider attending LabTech, where we’ll feature many of the latest Google updates as part of the Productivity sessions.
Here are a few of the key features and updates, but you can check the Google Workspace blog for additional updates.
Introducing skills in the Gemini app and Workspace, plus what’s next for Gems
We recently introduced skills—reusable prompts that guide Gemini—in the Gemini app and Google Workspace. Over the coming weeks, skills will roll out to Workspace users and eventually replace Gems as the tool for tailoring instructions for specific tasks.
Skills are reusable, custom instructions that you can leverage any time you’re prompting Gemini in the Gemini app and most Workspace apps. For example, you can create a brand voice skill to help you draft blog posts or a lesson planning skill to save time with class prep. You can even use multiple skills in the same prompt or at different points in the conversation.
To learn more about skills and how to create them in the Gemini app, Gemini Enterprise, and Workspace, business and enterprise users should check out our AI skills 101 handbook.
New logic and search steps in Workspace Studio help expand automation capabilities
We are introducing several new feature enhancements to Google Workspace Studio as part of the October 2026 feature release. These additions expand automation capabilities across Gmail, Google Meet, Google Drive, and custom control logic, giving users more flexibility to build sophisticated workflows without writing code.
Specifically, this release includes:
- Nested Conditionals: Enables nested branching logic within flows so users can build multi-layered conditional decision paths.
- Gmail Skip Replies: Allows users to configure Gmail thread triggers to ignore follow-up replies, ensuring flows trigger only on primary incoming emails.
- Meet Calendar Outputs: Expands the Google Meet primitive to output additional Calendar event metadata—including full invitee lists—and provides template support for generating post-meeting follow-up email drafts.
- Search for a Doc: Introduces a dedicated Google Drive step that allows flows to search dynamically for relevant document files based on search parameters.
These enhancements eliminate repetitive follow-up tasks, allow dynamic document lookup, and provide more control over automated communication across Google Workspace.
Gmail’s AI Inbox is rolling out to paid Workspace users
Earlier this year, we launched AI Inbox in Gmail which helps users catch up on what matters most. Starting today, we’re expanding AI Inbox to paid Google Workspace users. By highlighting key actionable to-do’s and summarizing priority work updates across your emails, AI Inbox makes it easier to stay on top of daily business workflows.
AI Inbox’s core capabilities:
- Suggested to-dos: Automatically extracts action items, deliverables, and deadlines embedded within email conversations. Teams and business leaders gain clear visibility into critical follow-ups without manual note-taking or scanning through dense threads.
- Topics to catch up on: Delivers clear, context-rich summaries of your most important topics, across multi-message threads and rapid back-and-forth discussions. Users can reference this section to get caught up on the latest key decisions and status changes.
Gemini in Google Sheets is now available on iOS devices
Building upon the power of Gemini in Sheets on the web and our recent launch on Android devices, we’re excited to announce that you can now use Gemini in Google Sheets on your iOS device to quickly analyze and understand your data while on the go.
Simply tap on the Gemini spark icon, and you can ask questions about your data, generate analytical insights, and create charts. To help you get started, we’ve included suggested prompts such as “Summarize this table,” and “Analyze for insights.”
