Google Workspace
Productivity and collaboration software
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2024 | Google began showing only public holidays and national observances as default Calendar events, removing observances like Pride Month and Black History Month. |
April 9 2024 | Google officially announced Google Vids, a new AI-powered video creation app for Google Workspace, designed to help users create work-related informational videos using Gemini technology. |
March 9 2024 | Samsung Smart TV compatibility for Google Meet was discontinued |
December 2023 | Google began rolling out a version of Google Chat with a redesigned sidebar, updated logo, and integrated artificial intelligence to improve productivity. |
July 2023 | Google added new features to Google Chat, including smart compose, message editing and deletion for consumer accounts, message quoting, read receipts, text hyperlinking, and the ability to hide inactive conversations and add apps from Google Workspace Marketplace. |
July 5 2023 | Google Currents was shut down, which will lead to increased functionality for Spaces. |
2022 | Google Meet launched compatibility with Android TV, replacing the Google Duo app |
December 2022 | Google launched Simple ML, an add-on for machine learning in Google Sheets. |
November 1 2022 | Google deprecated the original Hangouts and fully replaced it with Google Chat. |
November 1 2022 | Google Meet replaces Google Duo, with the Duo mobile app being renamed Meet and the original Meet app to be phased out. |
October 18 2022 | Google Meet offered compatibility with Samsung Smart TV |
September 2022 | Google announced that all Hangouts data would be deleted by January 1, 2023. |
September 20 2022 | Google announced the merger of reminders from Google Calendar and Google Assistant with Google Tasks. |
August 2022 | The merger of Duo into Meet began, with the Duo mobile app being renamed Meet, and the Duo web app redirecting to the Google Meet web app. |
June 2022 | Google announced the merger of Google Duo into Meet. |
May 2022 | Google announced that Chat would display banners warning users against potential phishing and malware attacks from personal accounts, enhancing user security. |
February 2022 | Google announced plans to begin the final migration of all Google Workspace customers from Google Hangouts to Google Chat, scheduled to be finalized in May 2022. |
February 2022 | Google rolled out a new Gmail interface designed to better integrate Spaces, Chat, and Meet. |
January 2022 | Google removed the temporarily extended advanced features for educators and workspace users, requiring a subscription to access premium features. |
2021 | Google rebranded Rooms to Spaces as part of the expansion of Google Workspace to all users, reviving a brand name previously used from 2016 to 2017. |
November 2021 | All websites created with classic Google Sites were archived. |
August 2021 | Google started automatically signing out Google Hangouts users on iOS and Android, encouraging them to switch to Google Chat. |
April 2021 | Google Chat became fully available to general consumers. |
February 2021 | Google began rolling out Google Chat in 'early access' to regular consumer accounts. |
February 2021 | Google introduced 'Lyra', a new very low-bitrate codec for speech compression that can operate with network speeds as low as 3 kbit/s, developed using machine learning models trained on thousands of hours of voice data. |
October 2020 | Google announced plans to open Google Chat to consumers in 2021 and migrate Hangouts conversations, contacts, and history to Google Chat. |
September 15 2020 | Google introduced Meet Series One in partnership with Lenovo, featuring a Meet Compute System with Edge TPU, Smart Camera, Smart Audio Bar with noise reduction, and options for remote control or a touchscreen with Google Assistant support. |
August 2020 | The new Google Sites became the default option for website creation. |
May 2020 | Asus unveiled videoconferencing hardware specifically designed for Google Meet, including a Meet Compute System mini PC, dedicated camera, and microphone for conference room settings. |
April 2020 | Google announced plans to support the AV1 video codec for Google Meet, expanding its video compression capabilities. |
April 2020 | During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Google Meet experienced a dramatic growth, increasing user base by a factor of 30 and reaching 100 million daily users by April. |
April 9 2020 | Hangouts Chat was officially renamed to Google Chat. |
March 2020 | Google rolled out Google Meet to personal (free) Google accounts, expanding the service's accessibility to individual users. |
March 2020 | Google temporarily extended advanced Google Meet features to all Google Workspace and G Suite for Education users during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
October 2019 | Google first announced their plan to begin retiring Google Hangouts. |
June 2017 | Google rolled out 'family calendars' allowing family members to create shared events visible in a shared calendar. |
March 2017 | Google formally launched Meet as a video conferencing app for up to 30 participants, positioned as an enterprise-friendly version of Hangouts. |
March 9 2017 | Google launched Hangouts Chat as part of its replacement for the original Google Hangouts, initially designed for teams and business environments within the Google Workspace software suite. |
February 2017 | Google quietly released an iOS app for Meet, initially keeping the service invite-only. |
January 2017 | Google expanded the 'Goals' feature to support integration with Google Fit and Apple Health for tracking goal progress. |
June 2016 | Google introduced a complete rebuild of the Google Sites platform, called the New Google Sites, and announced a transition schedule from Classic Google Sites. |
April 2016 | Google introduced the 'Goals' feature, which automatically schedules user-defined activities and adapts to their schedule over time. |
January 2016 | Google added 'Smart Suggestions' to mobile apps, recommending event titles, locations, and contacts. Simultaneously, they expanded holiday calendars to 143 country-specific options. |
December 2015 | Google added the 'Reminders' feature, allowing users to add to-do activities that appear in the calendar and can automatically include additional helpful information. |
August 2015 | Google introduced the 'Events from Gmail' feature, which automatically adds event information from Gmail messages to Google Calendar and updates events with new information like flight delays. |
March 2015 | CNET reviewer Sarah Mitroff published a detailed review of the Google Calendar Android app, praising its Material Design, Smart Suggestions feature, and integration with Gmail. |
March 10 2015 | Google released the iOS app for Google Calendar, expanding the service's availability to Apple mobile device users. |
December 2010 | Google added the ability for users to select a time zone for an event, addressing a previously criticized missing feature. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Google Calendar, Google Sheets, Google Sites, Google Vids, Google Meet & Google Chat, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.