(2021-05-25) Google Workspace Turns To Smart Chips To Weave Docs Tasks And Meet Together

Google Workspace turns to "smart chips" to weave Docs, Tasks, and Meet together. Google is launching a slate of new features for its Workspace productivity suite today, starting with new “smart chips” that connect Google Docs to other products. Just like you can tag people with an @ symbol, starting today, you can use it to specialize links inside docs that hook up other files or meetings. They’re part of what Google is calling the “smart canvas,” a new initiative that promises to increase the cadence of product improvements for Workspace.

The idea behind the smart canvas is similar to workplace productivity suite dreams that reach as far back as OpenDoc in the ’90s

As for some future system that actually presents all of these interconnections, tasks, and documents in a new dashboard? Soltero says: “I don’t want to spoil the rest of our roadmap,” but “there are many examples of decisions you could make to aggregate these things and the decision about whether you create yet another surface… I think restraint actually is not only the right call, but it is more characteristic of what has made Google successful.” In other words, if you were hoping this new interconnected and collaborative smart canvas portends the return of Google Wave, it does not.