AI Pro update: September 2026

Google Meet’s note-taker now works for in-person meetings and includes screenshots of presented content in its notes. Google Pics, a new app for creating and editing images with AI, is rolling out now, and Google Chat gains Ask Gemini, a single place to search your Workspace, catch up on conversations, and draft content, which takes over from the Gemini side panel in Chat. Sheets canvas builds interactive boards and dashboards on top of your spreadsheet data, and Help me write in Gmail takes refinement instructions in your own words.

Google Meet

Take notes for in-person meetings

Take notes for me now works for meetings that aren’t video calls at all. Select Take notes on the Meet home screen on the web or in the mobile app at the start of a face-to-face meeting, and Gemini listens and takes notes. Stop it when the meeting ends, and a Google Doc with a summary, action items, and a full transcript is saved to your Drive and emailed to you.

Use Take notes for me for in-person meetings

Screenshots in meeting notes

When Take notes for me is running and someone presents, Gemini can now capture screenshots of the presented content and include them in the notes document. A chart or slide someone referred to then sits alongside the summary. A notification tells you when you start presenting that screenshots may be taken, and you can turn it off from the notes panel.

Take notes for me in Google Meet

Add a co-presenter with one click

If you’re presenting Google Slides in a Meet call and someone says “next slide please” or asks to be added as a co-presenter, Ask Gemini in Meet now suggests adding them. One click gives them control of the slides. The suggestion appears only for the main presenter, in Chrome or Edge, and the phrase must be spoken in English.

Ask Gemini in Meet

Google Pics

Google Pics is a new Workspace app for creating and editing images with AI, sitting alongside Docs, Slides, and Vids. It covers the everyday image jobs that used to mean a separate editor—a picture for a display, a cover image for a Slides deck, a poster for an event, or a quick fix to a photo. Go to pics.new to get started.

Generate and edit images

Describe the image you want in the prompt bar and Pics generates it, with several versions to choose from and a Retry option for more. Or start from an image of your own, dropped in from your computer, Drive, or Google Photos. Either way, you can then edit with a prompt, select individual elements for precise changes, change or translate text within the image, crop it for the web, social media, or print, and upscale it to 2K or 4K. Reference images let a new image borrow the colours, style, or elements of one you already have, and a version history lets you step back through your changes.

Pics works like other Workspace apps for collaboration: invite colleagues to work on an image, share it by link, and create or open Pics images in Google Drive.

Get started with Google Pics

Edit images from Docs and Slides

Select an image in Google Docs or Slides and a single click opens it in Pics, so you can make precise edits without switching apps. Google has also announced that, in the coming weeks, Pics will open nearly any image saved in Drive with one click.

Google Chat

Ask Gemini in Chat

Ask Gemini in Chat is a new place in Google Chat to work with Gemini without leaving the conversation. Open it from Shortcuts in the left-hand panel, or press Ctrl + G (Command + G on a Mac). From there you can search across your Gmail, Drive, and Calendar, catch up on the conversations you’ve missed, draft updates, generate images, schedule meetings, and manage tasks. Each topic can be kept as its own session, so you can return to it later and carry on where you left off.

Ask Gemini takes over from the Gemini side panel in Chat, which disappears with this update, along with access to Gems from within Chat—Gems stay available in the side panel of other Workspace apps. Conversations from the old side panel don’t carry across.

Get started with Ask Gemini in Google Chat

Google Sheets

Sheets canvas

Sheets canvas turns a spreadsheet into a custom, interactive view—a kanban board, a dashboard, a tracker, or a whiteboard—built from a single prompt in the Gemini side panel. The canvas sits on top of your data and works in both directions. Drag a card or add an entry on the canvas and the sheet updates; edit the sheet and the change appears on the canvas straight away. You can keep refining the layout and features by prompting Gemini, and the canvas is shared with whoever can see the spreadsheet it belongs to.

For example, ask for “a board that groups our department’s action items by status” or “a dashboard showing attendance by year group across the term”.

Create a Sheets canvas

Fill with Gemini in more languages

Fill with Gemini and the AI function now work in 11 more languages, including Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Czech, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian.

Use the AI function in Google Sheets

Gmail

Refine drafts in your own words

Help me write in Gmail used to offer a fixed set of refinements—Polish, Formalise, Shorten. You can now type a follow-up instruction in the prompt bar instead, such as “add the deadline to the second paragraph” or “mention that the trip letter is attached”. The draft updates straight away, with undo and redo if you change your mind.

Draft emails with Gemini in Gmail

Gemini in Google Workspace

Custom instructions in more apps

The standing instructions you can give Gemini—covered for Docs in May’s update—now also apply in Ask Gemini in Drive, Ask Gemini in Chat, and the Gemini side panel in Gmail and Sheets. Set a preference once, such as “keep replies brief and in British English”, and Gemini follows it wherever you’re working.

Customise Gemini in Workspace’s responses with your instructions

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