Google Workspace Updates: Improve Chat apps with display carousels and richer text formatting (original) (raw)
September 30, 2025
What’s changing
Developers can use two new features to create more engaging Chat apps. Specifically, we are adding:
- A carousel widget: With this new carousel widget, you'll be able to interact with more complex and organized information in a horizontally scrollable carousel.
- Markdown support: The new Markdown support for text formatting will allow developers to specify markdown instead of converting all text to HTML.
- Lists and code blocks: You’ll now be able to add ordered, unordered, and nested lists, and code blocks to cards.
Why you’d use it:
The carousel widget provides a powerful tool for presenting complex information in an organized, scrollable, and compact format. Developers can use it to display product listings, multiple data points, or different options within a single card, creating a much more efficient and professional-looking user experience.
Markdown support can help simplify the process to build cards, and is especially critical to developers who are building AI agents. The standard output from many LLMs is markdown. Now, instead of converting the markdown to HTML, developers can now pass the entire markdown to Chat which will handle and render the text correctly.
Lists and code blocks are essential building blocks to enable rich display of information, enhancing readability and comprehension for users. They unlock critical use cases, such as providing structured data, displaying programming examples, and organizing complex details.
The carousel widget enables scrolling through information in an efficient and engaging manner
Markdown support enables easier to use text formatting while list and code block support enables richer text format
Getting started
- Developers: See our documentation to learn more about adding carousels or formatting messages.
- Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. It will be available by default when Developers choose to use it in their apps. Use our Help Center to learn more about allowing users to install Chat apps.
- End users: There is no end user control for this feature. It will be available by default when Developers choose to use it in their apps. Use our Help Center to learn more about Chat apps.
Rollout pace
- This feature is available now.
Availability
- Available to all Google Workspace customers