Remote collaboration with Google products should become a bit easier thanks to Smart Canvas, which aims to better integrate Google Workspace products such as Google Meet, Google Sheets, and Google Docs.

Basically, Google is proposing a future where all Workspace apps work together better. During the Google I/O keynote today, CEO Sundar Pichai said that Smart Canvas features that mimic modern remote collaboration tools like Slack will be added to Google Workspace apps over the coming fall. For example, typing the @ symbol in front of a person's name in a collaborative Google Doc will allow users to notify and assign tasks to that person or initiate a Google Meet call directly from a shared Google Doc.

Typing @ in front of someone's name in a Google Doc will bring up what Google calls a "smart tip." It's basically a pop-up window with more information about the person and provides an algorithm-generated list of related files, meetings, and people.

These smart chips will be introduced into Google Sheets later this year, along with improvements such as a new timeline view that allows users to dynamically schedule tasks tracked by category, owner, campaign, or other attributes.

In addition to Smart Tip, Google Docs will be updated with a new feature that allows users to create checklists and assign those items to other collaborators.

Google Docs now supports a new pageless format, new table templates (including one for tallying collaborators' votes on specific topics), and importing data from Google Calendar and attendee smart tips, new document templates designed for easy meeting note-taking will also be added.

Google Meet calls will be more tightly integrated with other Workspace products via Smart Canvas, and starting today, content from Google Docs/Sheets/Slides can be presented directly to Google Meet calls

This year's Fall

This fall, Docs, Sheets, and Slides will be updated to provide enhanced support for Google Meet.

Google is also updating Google Meet's live captioning and translation capabilities.

It would be hard not to feel a sense of familiarity with Google Smart Canvas. It has the look and feel of Google Wave, a long defunct project.

Introduced 11 years ago, Google Wave was supposed to be a new approach to project management. Designed to bring together media, chat, and project management, it was a lot of fun at the time. However, it never took off, and Google turned the project over to Apache in December 2010. Apache kept Wave in its incubator for eight years, but eventually closed it in 2018.

Perhaps Wave was ahead of its time, but the global pandemic certainly made it necessary for us to find new ways to work together. Perhaps now is the time for new collaboration tools that take advantage of what Google learned from Wave.