Google’s landmark developer conference, Google I/O, took place in early May and lived up to its ‘innovation in the open’ slogan with a raft of new functions and features.
Much of the highly-anticipated innovation centers on Workspace, adding multiple upgrades to the popular cloud-based office suite. These additional features offer improvements across the board, from security to virtual meetings and sound quality to document creation.
What to Watch in Workspace
Automated summaries
Google is leveraging its AI expertise to bring automated summaries to Google Docs. Using machine learning and language compression, the software can trawl through long documents to assemble the main points and produce an easily-digestible summary.
This will likely be a massive time-saver for businesses, especially those who produce large volumes of technical documentation. It should also help senior staff, who don’t have the time to comb through reams of material. Getting the highlights will streamline their internal communications.
Meeting enhancements
Google’s signature meeting app, Google Meet, is also getting an upgrade. New features will improve its look, sound, and sharing capabilities.
The screen will give better image quality thanks to the new Portrait Restore and Portrait Light filters, which provide users studio-quality lighting. Again, this AI-driven enhancement can help users overcome problems with connections, webcams, and low lighting. You can adjust it yourself, choosing your best angles using a custom tool.
Also new to Google Meet is a de-reverberation tool that cuts noise to improve sound quality and eliminate distractions during meetings. This feature filters out echoes, so you get a consistent sound, whether in a small apartment or an echoey conference room.
Live sharing makes Google Meet more interactive, allowing meeting users to sync and share media in real-time. For businesses, this is a great way to ensure everyone’s participating during a hybrid event, giving in-person and virtual attendees access to the same tools.
Improved data protection
Google is stepping up security to combat the emergence of embedded malware in office documents, adding to its phishing detection and malware defenses.
The company is scaling its phishing and malware protections for Gmail to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides - meaning that users on those platforms will be alerted whenever there’s a suspect file containing malware. It will also continue rolling out 2-step verification across Workspace to continue its goal of auto-enrolling over 150 million accounts.
What these new features mean for your business
Much of the AI-based innovation announced at Google I/O is tailored toward companies transitioning to, or have fully adopted, a hybrid working model.
Updates to Google Meet will enhance virtual meetings and presentations when staff members are out of the office. At the same time, more robust security measures give organizations confidence that off-site work is still secure.
In the last few years, remote working has gone from being a pandemic-driven quick-fix to a permanent feature in many offices. Google’s latest updates help organizations manage this shift, strengthening endpoint management and taking a zero-trust approach to collaborative working.
Let us know if you’re moving to Google Workspace, integrating Google applications with your existing tech stack, or are eager to learn more about how upcoming Google updates will impact your business. UpCurve Cloud is a Google Premier Partner with a highly-experienced team of Google-certified engineers and technicians. We’ve helped hundreds of companies make the most of their Workspace, contact us today to see how we can transform your tech tools.
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