Google Workspace Adds Markdown Editing, Voice Tools and Live Translation
Google has announced several Workspace updates for Docs, Drive, Gmail, Meet, Sheets, and Vids. The October release adds Markdown editing to Docs and Drive, along with voice-based tools in Gmail and Docs. Google Meet is also receiving real-time speech translation across 63 languages. Other changes include faster data migration from Microsoft 365, new AI features in Sheets, and improved video generation in Vids. The updates are rolling out to Workspace users.
Google Docs and Drive can now open and edit Markdown (.md) files directly. Users no longer need to convert them first. Docs also lets people add comments and track changes through version history. In Drive, Markdown files appear with formatting intact, including tables and links, rather than as blocks of raw text. This feature helps teams that regularly work with technical documents or AI prompts.
Additionally, Google is bringing voice features to Gmail and Docs. Gmail Live lets users talk to their inbox and look up details buried in emails, such as meeting information or project updates. Docs Live works in a similar way. Users can speak their ideas and turn them into drafts, whether a project brief or an executive summary. It can also pull relevant information from emails, chats, and Drive files using Workspace Intelligence.
Google Meet is getting live speech translation for 63 languages. It can translate what people say and display captions in each participant’s preferred language during one-to-one and group calls. People can turn the feature on individually, so not everyone in the meeting needs to use it. Furthermore, Meet’s Quick notes feature is changing. It will now give users a one-page rundown of the main decisions and next steps, alongside the full meeting notes and transcript.
For organisations moving from Microsoft 365 to Workspace, Google says its updated migration tools can make the process up to five times faster at no extra cost. They can move Teams messages and attachments to Google Chat, transfer OneDrive files and folder structures to Drive, and bring SharePoint Online libraries into shared drives. Google has also made changes to Office file editing in Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. These include cross-references in Docs and improvements to charts and pivot tables in Sheets.
In Sheets, Fill with Gemini and the AI function can now cite web sources and handle up to 3,000 cells in a single request. Meanwhile, Google Vids is getting AI video generation through Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash. Users can make longer clips, set their duration, and upscale videos to 1080p.