What changed in Google Workspace this September, and what it means for your automations

Google's Workspace Updates blog shipped 2 weekly recaps this month, on 11 and 18 September 2026, that matter more to operations teams than the usual run of Meet and Chat features. 4 items change what we recommend to clients who run their business on Workspace. Here is each one, what it actually does, and what we would do about it.

1. Workspace Studio flows can now run your own code and call webhooks

Workspace Studio is Google's no-code flow builder, the thing that lets a manager say "when a form comes in, do these steps" without a developer. Until now the steps were Google's steps. From 17 September, admin settings began rolling out for 4 new capabilities: custom starters, custom steps, third-party integrations, and webhooks. End users on Rapid Release domains see them from 21 September, Scheduled Release from 30 September.

The line that matters is in Google's own announcement: flows can now connect custom Apps Script functions and trigger external webhooks. In practice that means a flow can hand a step to code you own, and a system outside Google can start a flow. The wall between the no-code builder and the engineered pipeline just got a door in it.

• What we would do: keep the flow for the parts a manager should be able to see and edit, and put the parts that need checks, retries, and a run log into an Apps Script step the flow calls. The manager keeps the map, the code keeps the discipline.
• What to watch: admin controls decide who can publish steps and starters. Turn them on for a named group first, not the whole domain.

2. Sheets now holds 20 million cells

Google announced the doubled limit as a beta on 22 April 2026 and made it generally available on 10 September for Rapid Release domains, with Scheduled Release following from 28 September. It applies to new and existing spreadsheets and to imported Excel and CSV files, with no setting to flip. Google also said it plans to raise the byte-size limit for imports.

We have told clients for years that a Sheet tops out around 10 million cells and that the move to BigQuery comes before that. The ceiling is now twice as high. Our advice changes less than you might think: a Sheet is still a working view, not a warehouse, and the reason to move is usually query speed and shared access, not the cell count. But a pipeline that lands 30,000 rows a month with 40 columns now has years of headroom before the conversation about a database starts.

3. Apps Script data regions are generally available

Organisations that set a data region policy in the Admin console can now have Apps Script honour it: script files, code, manifests, trigger metadata, and the key-value stores stay in the chosen region at rest and during execution. Google also said that non-regionalised Apps Script services will be disabled from September 2026 for organisations that turn on the strict toggle in the data regions advanced settings.

For healthcare, disability services, finance, and anyone answering to a regulator about where data lives, this removes the last awkward question about building internal tools in Apps Script. It arrived 3 months after Apps Script became a Workspace core service in June. Together they make Apps Script a first-class place to run a compliant internal system, not a scripting corner.

• What we would do: if you have a data regions policy, check the advanced settings before the strict toggle bites a script you rely on. Anything using a non-regionalised service needs a look this month.

4. Gemini in Workspace connects to QuickBooks, HubSpot, and Salesforce

The 18 September recap lists direct connections from Gemini inside Sheets, Gmail, Drive, Docs, and Chat to Asana, Atlassian Rovo, HubSpot, Intuit Mailchimp, Intuit QuickBooks, Monday, and Salesforce, using the Model Context Protocol. A person in a Sheet can ask about a customer in the CRM or an invoice in the accounting system without switching tabs.

This is genuinely useful for the person at the keyboard, and it is not the same thing as automation. It answers a question when someone asks. It does not reconcile the CRM against billing at 2 a.m., and it does not write a clean row into a ledger with a check on it. Treat it as a better window onto your systems, and keep the scheduled, checked, logged work in pipelines. The 2 are complements, and the businesses that get the most from the first are the ones that already have the second.

The theme of the month is that Google is making the Workspace floor stronger: more cells, regional data, code inside flows, systems inside Gemini. The floor is not the building. The building is still the pipeline you design, with the checks you chose.

If any of these touches something you run today, the useful next step is a 30-minute review of what is on Workspace, what is scheduled, and where the checks are. We do those every week and they are usually more reassuring than people expect.