Introducing Ask Gemini in Chat: your new partner in productivity

Google Chat is the central hub for real-time collaboration in Workspace, and starting August 26, 2026, it becomes the place where you can bring the power of Gemini into your flow of teamwork. We’re introducing Ask Gemini in Google Chat, a unified command line for your work, powered by Workspace Intelligence.

Ask Gemini in Chat helps you navigate your day, stay on top of the flow of collaboration, find what you’re looking for, and help you take action.

Find answers quickly: Search across your Workspace data (like Gmail, Drive, or Calendar) to gather information.
Create content: Generate images or draft critical updates without leaving the conversation.
Stay on top of discussions: Catch up on all your conversations in one place.
Manage tasks and events: Schedule your meetings and manage tasks without breaking your flow.
Organize your work: Structure your conversations with individual sessions to revisit and continue work on specific topics over time.

Ask Gemini helps you reduce time spent searching for information and toggling between tabs, to ensure you have everything you need to take action and keep up with the busy pace of modern teamwork.

A GIF showing how to ask questions from Gemini in Chat

Ask Gemini is available in the Shortcuts menu in Chat

Important changes to Gemini side panel in Chat

Ask Gemini in Chat provides many of the functions previously available in the Gemini side panel in Chat, including finding files, capturing action items and summarizing conversations. With this launch, you’ll no longer see the side panel in Chat.
In addition, you’ll no longer be able to access Gems via Gemini side panel in Chat. However, Gems will remain available in the Gemini side panel of other Workspace apps.
Your conversation history from the Gemini side panel in Chat will not migrate to the new Ask Gemini surface in Chat. However, admins will be able to export Gemini conversation history, including conversation history from the Chat side panel, and if permitted by their organization, end users will be able to download their conversation history as well. Note that in the Data Export tool and Google Takeout, this data is stored under “Gemini in Workspace,” not “Google Chat.”

Language availability

This change will only affect users who have English as their Google account language. Users with other language preferences will be able to continue using the side panel as this update will not apply to them. Support for more languages will be added in the future.

Getting started

Admins: This feature is available by default if Gemini in Workspace in Chat and Workspace Intelligence for all apps are enabled.
End users: To use Ask Gemini features, you must be enrolled in Workspace Smart Features. Once enabled, Ask Gemini will be available on the left under "Shortcuts" in Google Chat. You can also quickly access it using the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + g on ChromeOS/Windows or Command + g on macOS). Visit the Help Center to learn more about Ask Gemini in Chat.

Through October 1, 2026, Workspace customers will get promotional access to higher limits for Ask Gemini in Chat, allowing users to experiment with this feature. Usage limits will apply after that date; we’ll provide more information in the Help Center in advance of updated usage limits going into effect.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 26, 2026

Availability

Business: Business Standard and Plus
Enterprise: Enterprise Standard and Plus
Education Add-ons: Google AI Pro for Education

Resources

Google Chat Help: Get started with Ask Gemini in Google Chat

Source: Google Workspace Updates

Stable Channel Update for ChromeOS / ChromeOS Flex

M-151, ChromeOS version 16733.54.0 (Browser version 151.0.7922.168) has rolled out to ChromeOS devices on the Stable channel.

If you find new issues, please let us know one of the following ways:

File a bug
Visit our ChromeOS communities

General: Chromebook Help Community
Beta Specific: ChromeOS Beta Help Community

Report an issue or send feedback on Chrome
Interested in switching channels? Find out how.

Andy Wu

Google ChromeOS

Source: Google Chrome Releases

Chrome for Android Update

Hello Everyone! We've just released Chrome 152 (152.0.7977.54) for Android to a small percentage of users. It'll become available on Google Play over the next few days. You can find more details about early Stable releases here.

This release includes stability and performance improvements. You can see a full list of the changes in the Git log. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Krishna Govind
Google Chrome

Source: Google Chrome Releases

Elevate your Google Meet experience for shared meeting spaces with Room Display mode

We are excited to introduce Room Display mode, a new dual-window experience for Google Meet on the web. Launching in beta, this feature is designed specifically for "Bring Your Own Device" meeting spaces, where users connect a personal laptop to a shared external display, such as a TV or projector.

Joining in Room Display mode

Historically, setting up a meeting on a shared display (e.g. in a meeting room) meant manually dragging browser windows across screens, dealing with clunky display layouts, and risking showing your browsing windows. Room Display mode removes this complexity by automatically splitting your meeting interface into two dedicated views the moment you connect your device and join the call:

Shared View (TV/Monitor): A clean, distraction-free, entire-screen view on your external display. It displays remote participant video tiles and shared presentations edge-to-edge. You can choose to go full screen by clicking the full-screen window button.

Shared View (TV) in Room Display mode with and without and active presentation

Personal View (Laptop Controller): Your laptop screen becomes a private personal view and "control center" for the meeting. In addition to your persona
l view of the active presentation, it houses the meeting controls, peripherals selection, presentation controls, the participant roster, chat panels, and your "Ask Gemini" panel. This ensures you can manage the meeting privately without displaying your browser window or personal workspace to the entire room.

Personal View (Laptop) in Room Display mode with an active presentation with speaker notes and with the Ask Gemini side panel open

Whether you’re hosting a team sync, leading a pitch, or watching a presentation, Room Display mode makes running meetings on a shared display and collaborating in hybrid environments more seamless and professional.

Note: This requires a Chromium-based browser (such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge) with Window Management permissions enabled.

Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: This feature will be available by default when a laptop running a Chromium-based browser is connected to an external display (set to Extended mode, not mirrored). Room Display mode will be highlighted as the main option to join the call when the laptop detects a shared external display like a meeting room TV. To help us improve the feature, provide feedback via the thumbs up/down icons and the feedback link in the Personal View UI. Visit the Help Center to learn more about joining meetings with Room Display mode.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 19, 2026

Availability

Business: Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
Enterprise: Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
Other Editions: Frontline Starter, Standard, and Plus; Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus; Nonprofits

Resources

Google Meet Hardware Help: Join meetings with Room Display mode

Source: Google Workspace Updates

Announcing v25.1 of the Google Ads API

Today we are announcing the release of v25.1 of the Google Ads API. To use the new capabilities, you must upgrade your client libraries and client code. All the updated client libraries and code examples have been published.

Come join us for a live walkthrough of this release in our "Google Ads API Release Highlights" event on Discord or our Ads Developers YouTube Live tomorrow (August 20th at 10am ET). This will also be recorded and posted on YouTube for those who can’t make the live events. If you have any questions or want to discuss this post, reach out to us in the #ads-api channel on Discord.

New Features

Here are the highlights of what’s new in v25.1:

Conversion lift and brand lift measurement: We've added comprehensive support for lift studies in the API. Read-only resources LiftMeasurementConfig and LiftMeasurementFlight allow you to inspect study configurations, flight dates, campaign details, and conversion goals. This release includes 24 new Conversion Lift metrics and winner score metrics for statistical analysis, as well as new Brand Lift dimension resources: LiftMeasurementAgeRange, LiftMeasurementCampaign, LiftMeasurementDevice, LiftMeasurementGender, and LiftMeasurementVideo. Refer to our help center article to learn more about Brand lift and Conversion lift. Both these features are available only to allowlisted Google Ads accounts. To use these features, contact your Google account representative.
BenchmarksService category scoping and new metrics: You can now scope your benchmark analysis against advertisers in specific Product & Service Categories using the new category_filter parameter in BenchmarksService.GenerateBenchmarksMetrics. Supported categories can be discovered via ListBenchmarksSources. In addition, new customer ad metrics (aggregate cost, views) and share metrics such as share_of_voice are now surfaced via AggregateMetrics and ShareMetrics.
Brand Sentiment Insights: ContentCreatorInsightsService now supports brand sentiment data, allowing you to retrieve sentiment distributions and summaries for creators and brands via BrandSentimentInsight.
Loyalty Program Segmentation and Conversion Value Rules: You can now segment report metrics by the loyalty program tier of converting users using Segments.loyalty_membership. Additionally, the new LOYALTY_MEMBERSHIP primary dimension in ConversionValueRulePrimaryDimension allows you to track when a loyalty membership condition was satisfied for a conversion value rule.
Original Conversion Value Metric: The new Metrics.original_conversion_value metric surfaces the unadjusted conversion value from biddable conversions before any conversion value rules or customer lifecycle goal adjustments are applied.
Parental Status Targeting in Reach Planning: ReachPlanService now supports parental_statuses targeting within Targeting and PlannableTargeting for reach forecasting and plannable product discovery.

Getting Started

Google Ads API v25.1 is a drop-in upgrade for v25. If you use our client libraries, download the latest version of your client library to start using these features. For a full list of changes, please review the official release notes. If you have any questions or want to discuss this post, please reach out to us on our “Google Advertising and Measurement Community” Discord server.

For technical support issues, please reach out to the Google Ads API support channel.

- Anash P. Oommen, Google Ads API Team

Source: Google Ads Developer Blog

Preparing your app for broader memory limits

Posted by Blair Harmon, Director of Product Management, Android Platform

A great user experience is central to Android's mission, and delivering on that promise requires keeping devices fast, responsive, and reliable. This is why memory optimization is more critical than ever. Across the ecosystem, new devices are maintaining or even decreasing their physical memory capacity in response to memory price increases, yet users continue to expect the same seamless, high-performance app experience.

In Android 17, we introduced per-app memory limits, starting with Pixel devices, to help protect the overall user experience from applications using excess memory and causing system-wide slowdowns. Over the coming year, an increasing number of manufacturers will leverage the Android per-app memory limits across their portfolio of device RAM configurations from 4GB to 16GB+ devices. If your app exceeds these limits, it will be slowed down and may be terminated. Optimizing your app's memory footprint is essential to preventing OS throttling and maintaining a seamless user experience.

In this post, we’ll explore how these limits work under the hood, how to measure your memory footprint using new Android vitals metrics, and actionable steps to optimize your app or game.

Understanding Memory Limits

When your app exceeds its memory budget, Android takes progressive action to protect device responsiveness:

zRAM Swapping: If your app reaches its allocated limit, the system forces your app's pages into zRAM (compressed RAM). While zRAM prevents immediate eviction, compressing and decompressing pages adds CPU overhead, which can result in noticeable UI jank and experience slowdowns.
Process Termination: If your app continues to increase its memory usage beyond the zRAM threshold, it will be terminated by the system. To determine if your app session was impacted by these constraints in the field, you can call getDescription() within ApplicationExitInfo. If the system applied a limit, the exit reason is reported as REASON_OTHER and the description string will contain "MemoryLimiter:AnonSwap". You can also leverage trigger-based profiling using TRIGGER_TYPE_ANOMALY to automatically capture heap dumps when the memory limit is reached.

To learn more about per-app memory limits and system enforcement, review the Android 17 App Memory Limits documentation. To test your application on different device configurations use the Memory Limiter adb commands.

Monitoring and Diagnosing Memory Issues

You can't optimize what you can't measure. Identifying memory leaks, excessive heap allocations, and Out-Of-Memory (OOM) crashes across the Android ecosystem requires leveraging complementary monitoring tools:

Macro-level health with Android vitals: For broad, population-level visibility without additional overhead, Google Play Console’s Android vitals provides essential metrics like Memory Usage (Anonymous RSS + swap) and Bitmap Memory Usage. This gives you a clear snapshot of memory distribution across different process states (foreground, background, user-perceived services, and cached) and RAM class ranges, helping you spot memory outliers.
Memory Limiter exits & OOM tracking with Firebase Crashlytics: To stay informed about severe memory degradation before it impacts your key metrics, Crashlytics version 20.1.0 introduces additional debug data to help you catch, prioritize, and fix Out-Of-Memory exceptions and memory limiter kills. Tracking these events alongside custom logs and key-value metadata gives you immediate context into process status when a memory failure occurs.
In-field traces with ProfilingManager: For teams able to maintain a performance observability framework, the ProfilingManager API introduced in Android 15 (API level 35) allows your app to programmatically request and collect detailed memory debug artifacts such as Java heap dumps and heap profiles directly from production devices. You can also trigger heap dump captures based on specific system signals, such as TRIGGER_TYPE_OOM and TRIGGER_TYPE_ANOMALY.

Read our documentation to learn more about other memory monitoring techniques.

Summary & What's Next

With Android broadening per-app memory limits across all RAM classes, now is the time to audit your memory footprint:

Prioritize memory optimizations: Prevent your app from being impacted by app memory limits by using best practices.
Monitor memory use: Monitor your app’s memory behavior to detect and resolve anomalous behavior.
Optimize your game: Follow the latest guidance for games and complex multimedia apps to maximize memory savings across process states.