The August 2025 updates for Google Workspace are here, and the theme is clear: making your everyday tools smarter, more intuitive, and more efficient. This month, Google has rolled out powerful new Gemini integrations for mobile users and major quality-of-life improvements for handling video in Drive and designing in Slides.
At Cloudasta, we've gone through all the latest announcements to bring you the highlights that will have the biggest impact on your team's productivity.
You can also check the video version:
Artificial intelligence continues to be woven deeper into the Google ecosystem, with three key updates that bring Gemini's power to more of your daily tasks.
You can now leverage the power of Gemini directly within the Google Docs app on your iOS devices. By tapping the new companion star icon, you can bring up a prompt to summarize the document, generate new content, or start a conversation with Gemini about your file. This is a significant step forward for mobile productivity, allowing you to work with AI assistance wherever you are.
Building a comprehensive survey just got easier. Building on its ability to summarize responses, Gemini can now suggest new questions for your Google Forms. Based on the questions you've already written, Gemini will propose relevant additions to help you gather more thorough data, saving you time and helping you identify questions you might have missed.
For anyone in a busy Google Chat space, this is a game-changer. When you have a significant number of unread messages, a new "Summarize" button will appear, powered by Gemini. With one click, you'll get a bulleted overview of the recent discussion, allowing you to catch up on the conversation in seconds without scrolling through dozens of messages.
Google Drive is becoming an even more powerful hub for your video files with two fantastic new features that mirror the user-friendly experience of platforms like YouTube.
No more guessing where a specific moment is in your video file. When you hover or scrub over the timeline of a video in Google Drive, you will now see small thumbnail previews of the content. This makes it incredibly easy to navigate long videos and find the exact section you need to watch or share.
Once you've found the video you want to work on, a new option is available at the top of the player: "Open in Google Vids." If you have Google Vids enabled, this button allows you to instantly send your video to the editor, where you can perform basic but essential tasks like cutting, slicing, adding music, and applying overlays, all within your browser.
Finally, Google has rolled out two updates focused on improving precision and making content more accessible.
A small but mighty update for anyone who designs presentations: the default behavior for moving objects in Google Slides has changed. Now, when you select an object and use the arrow keys on your keyboard, it will move one pixel at a time by default. This gives you far more granular control for precise alignment without needing to remember a keyboard shortcut.
You can now have your Google Docs read aloud to you via Gemini. Found under the Tools > Audio menu, the "Listen" feature opens a small player with speed controls. This is perfect for proofreading, multitasking, or providing an audio version of your content for others. You can even insert a "Listen to this tab" button directly into your document to make it easily accessible to all readers.
The August 2025 updates are all about embedding intelligence and efficiency into the tools you rely on every day. From AI assistance on your phone to more powerful video tools in the cloud, these features are designed to save you time and effort.
Want to make sure your team is taking full advantage of these new tools? Contact the experts at Cloudasta today for training and strategic guidance on optimizing your Google Workspace environment.
