Google Workspace Wednesday

Issue #81 / 18-DEC-24

Email scams surge over the holiday — here’s how Gmail keeps you safe

Thanks to new Gmail security features that Google launched over the past year, users reported 35% fewer scams (phishing, malware, etc.) hitting inboxes during the first month of the holiday season compared to last year. Millions more unwanted and potentially dangerous messages were blocked before they even reached inboxes. Here’s how Google made this happen, and what you can do to stay ahead of scams.

Adding folder support to Gemini in the side panel of Google Drive

Since rolling out Gemini in the side panel of Google Drive, users have been able to summarize one or multiple documents, get quick facts about a project, and more. Google introduced a new way for users to interact with the Gemini side panel while viewing PDFs. Now, you can focus your Gemini conversations in Drive to a specific Drive folder using the side panel. For example, after indicating a specific folder via an @-mention, you can ask Gemini to find files in the folder or write a summary of the folder’s content.

Improvements to mentions in Google Chat

There are scenarios in which you may want to reference a person with an @mention without adding them to a conversation in Google Chat. Starting now, when mentioning a user that is not already in the conversation, you will have the option to add them and send the message, or just send the message without adding them.