Google Workspace is now free for everyone

Google announced that it is making Workspace available to all users so they can use all the extra features added in Drive, Meet, Docs, Sheets and more. According to the official announcement of the company, "now, all of the company’s three billion-plus existing users across consumer, enterprise, and education have access to the full Google Workspace experience."

To be part of the new integrated Workspace experience, you need to enable Chat in Gmail and try new features like smart suggestions in emails or documents, the ability to @-mention other users to add them to tasks and present Google Docs, Sheets or Slides directly within your Meet calls.

At the same time Google is introducing some new features for the evolution of Rooms in Chat - known as Hangouts. "Over the summer, we’ll evolve Rooms to become Spaces and launch a streamlined and flexible user interface that helps teams and individuals stay on top of everything that’s important."

Google Chat is becoming a dynamic business tool as it provides more collaborating tools. In addition, the company stressed that Spaces will be enhanced with additional tools "for better organization of information, conversations and files for a project". Google also said "Spaces will seamlessly integrate with files and tasks," allowing for "all the relevant information, conversations, and files for a project [to] be organized."

The company has upgraded video calls with the addition of extra features that other services like Zoom and Microsoft's Teams already offer. Google Meet gains Companion Mode, which will allow meeting participants access to features like polls, in-meeting chat, hand-raising, Q&A, live captions and more regardless of the device they're using. According to the company, "Companion Mode will be available on the web and Google Meet’s upcoming progressive web app in September, and it will be coming soon to mobile."