This week Google eliminated the need to pay to access its Google Workspace suite of productivity tools, offering the web-based tools to everyone with a Gmail account. This is clearly a bold move by Google in its desire to compete with Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams in the area of free remote collaboration tools.

That means that most of us will soon have access to a redesigned Gmail that brings several additional features aimed at making it easier to share and collaborate with others: in the Chat and Meet section of Gmail's Settings menu, You may not notice the change unless you set your chat settings to "Google Chat" (instead of "Classic Hangouts"), but this is a big move for Google.

Once you change your chat settings, you will notice that Gmail has added a "Rooms" tab separate from the Chat tab. Rooms were previously only available to paid Google Workspace users, but as of this week they are now available to everyone.

Currently, these Rooms appear to be essentially stand-alone group chats, but Google, in rebranding Rooms to Spaces, has redesigned the interface to include topic threading, presence indicators, custom status (aka away messages), and other updates that will be rolled out over the summer.

The goal seems to be to get Gmail's billions of users to start using Spaces like they do Slack and Teams. This is all part of the grand vision of a unified Google Workspace for everyone that the company laid out when it unveiled Smart Canvas at the I/O developer conference earlier this year.

Touted as the connective tissue of the Google Workspace, Smart Canvas is an important part of this Gmail redesign, and you should be able to see it for yourself right now: just open a Google Doc, type the @ symbol, and you'll be able to see who you tag and A small window (Google calls it a "smart tip") will open that displays a context-sensitive list of documents/calendar events to embed.

Throughout 2021, more smart tip features and general functionality will be added to Google Workspace products like Sheets and Meet to make them more competitive with free collaboration tools like Slack.

For example, between now and September, Google plans to launch Google Meet Companion Mode (pictured in the mockup above), which was previewed at I/O last month. This companion mode is designed for the increasingly common hybrid workplace, where both in-person and remote participants often participate in meetings, and meeting participants who are physically present can launch the app on their phones or through a separate web app to chat, share screens and voting, as well as access to Google Meet tools.

The search giant also launched a new version of Workspace this week: Google Workspace Individual, a subscription service targeting sole proprietors; those who pay for Workspace Individual can expect access to better video meeting tools, personalized email marketing, smart booking services, and other features Google plans to roll out in the future.