Generative AI technology leader OpenAI on Tuesday had to respond quickly to fix an issue affecting ChatGPT that made the AI chatbot unavailable for some users, who widely shared reports of their lack of access to the platform on social media.
The company began investigating the issue — discussed widely by users on platforms such as X and Threads — soon after midnight Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) on Tuesday, according to the OpenAI website that reports on the status of the service. By 4:45 am PDT, the issue had been resolved with a “fix,” without the company publicly saying more about what had caused the downtime.
X users reporting the outage approached it with a sense of humor, making light of the dependence that people already have on the AI chatbot to help them with aspects of their worker productivity.
“#ChatGPT is down,” commented one X user, “tokyo_todd.” “What if it never comes back and we have to use our own brains to write stuff again?”
Another X user going by the name “Bitcoin Lebowski” said that he refused to do “any actual thinking” while the AI chatbot was not working. “I’ll just sit here until it becomes available again,” he commented on the platform.
The outage was likely no laughing matter for OpenAI, however, which faces heated competition from Microsoft, Google, xAI, and a host of other tech companies in the race to provide the most advanced AI models to set the road ahead for the controversial technology. OpenAI could not be reached for immediate comment Tuesday on what caused the outage.
Most experts agree that occasional outages are to be expected among any cloud-based services, and consumer-facing AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Mistral Le Chat, and Microsoft CoPilot are no exception.
Among them, “outages don’t raise many eyebrows for two reasons,” Bradley Shimmin, chief analyst of AI platforms, analytics, and data management for research firm Omdia, told Computerworld. One is that such services are “asynchronous in nature with highly variable response times seen as the norm,” he noted. Secondly, they’re not typically used within a mission-crtiical context, making downtime less of an issue than if they were being used in this way.
Indeed, outages are common even among cloud hyperscalers with mission-critical services such as Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft, so there’s no need to sound an alarm if an AI chatbot goes down for a while, noted Pareekh Jain, CEO of EIIRTrend & Pareekh Consulting. Still, all eyes will be on OpenAI to see how the company handles the outage, which could portend its own future success as well as the safety and security of AI going forward, he noted.
“An important point for OpenAI is how fast they respond to the outage and convince stakeholders about proactive actions they will take for minimizing future outages,” Jain said. Given that the company responded quickly to fix the issue, the response from these stakeholders will likely be positive.
Still, any downtime for a new technology such as an AI chatbot “stands as a stark reminder that AI technologies are not immune to the same security, privacy, and reliability problems that plague all of IT,” Shimmin noted.
“If anything, AI services bring with them a new host of threat vectors and potential risks such as model poisoning, jailbreaking, and injection attacks,” he said. Defending against these scenarios “all comes down to basic cloud services data protections,” Shimmin added.
The Computex trade show in Taipei has become the battleground for AI hardware giants as AMD and Intel unveil new products and strategies, challenging Nvidia’s market dominance.
AMD has announced the launch of its Instinct MI325X accelerator, set for release in the fourth quarter of 2024. This will be followed by the MI350 series, based on the new CDNA 4 architecture, expected in 2025.
The company claimed the MI350 will offer a 35-fold increase in AI inference performance over its predecessor, the MI300 series. AMD also plans to introduce the Instinct MI400 series, leveraging its future CDNA “Next” architecture.
Meanwhile, Intel revealed its Lunar Lake client processor architecture, aiming to expand its footprint in the AI PC category.
Intel also rolled out its Xeon 6 processors designed to enhance performance and power efficiency for data center operations. The company also announced significantly lower pricing for its Gaudi 2 and Gaudi 3 AI accelerator kits compared to similar products from Nvidia.
These announcements closely follow Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s disclosure that Nvidia’s next-generation AI chip platform, Rubin, slated for a 2026 release, will include new GPU, CPU, and networking chips.
Competing with Nvidia
Analysts say that Nvidia’s Rubin platform can outperform chips from rivals AMD and Intel in terms of raw power. However, the market positioning and unique selling points of AMD and Intel’s offerings will be key factors in determining their competitiveness against Nvidia’s technology.
“Intel, for instance, has been aggressive with its pricing, significantly undercutting Nvidia,” said Akshara Bassi, senior research analyst at Counterpoint Research. “The Gaudi 3 is priced at about $125,000 and Gaudi 2 at $65,000, compared to Nvidia’s solutions that can cost over $300,000. This pricing makes Intel an attractive option, especially considering the total cost of ownership and performance per watt, which are critical for many businesses.”
This means that for foundational AI workloads involving trillions of parameters, Nvidia would remain the top choice due to its superior computing power. However, for more specialized tasks, AMD and Intel may provide cost-effective alternatives.
This strategy allows each company to play to its unique selling points, according to Manish Rawat, a semiconductor analyst at Techinsights.
“Nvidia seeks to bolster its ecosystem and innovation leadership, while AMD aims to capitalize on its roadmap and partnerships,” Rawat said. “Intel focuses on cost efficiency, reliability, and strategic alliances to regain market share in this competitive landscape. Each company’s approach underscores their distinct strengths and challenges in shaping the future of AI and computational technologies.”
Industry trend toward inference
The increased prevalence of AI infrastructure could lead to a stronger emphasis on inferencing. In fact, Nvidia recently reported that about 40% of its AI chip revenue comes from inferencing.
“We believe this will become more skewed towards inferencing as AI integrates deeper into business systems and processes,” Bassi said. “Such integrations will require real-time results, whether inferencing at the edge or at central cloud solutions, depending on how AI workloads and use cases evolve.”
From a hardware perspective, the market may also see a rise in custom chips. Many hyperscalers have announced their custom AI hardware solutions. For instance, Amazon offers the likes of Tranium, Inferentia, and Graviton. Microsoft has Cobalt and Meta offers MTIA.
“We anticipate more solutions in the future where cloud providers will offer services powered by their own chips,” Bassi said. “This trend of custom chip solutions by hyperscalers is expected to continue.”
Expect stiffer competition
The advancements from AMD and Intel in the AI chip market are set to intensify competition, fostering innovation and potentially accelerating technological progress and overall performance improvements.
“Intel’s aggressive pricing strategy may induce Nvidia and AMD to reevaluate their pricing models, potentially making AI hardware more accessible, which could benefit smaller firms and startups in the AI sector,” Rawat said. “As competition heightens, there could be increased industry consolidation and strategic partnerships among semiconductor companies to capitalize on synergies and address market gaps effectively.”
Finally, the introduction of AI capabilities into PCs, exemplified by AMD’s AI PC chips, signals a broader trend toward integrating AI functionalities into various devices.
“This expansion is likely to stimulate growth in the AI software ecosystem, as well as in complementary sectors such as cloud computing, edge computing, and IoT, broadening the applications and impact of AI technology across industries,” Rawat added.
At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference next week, smartphone giant Apple is expected to do what some of its competitors have already done, which is to unveil and promote powerful AI features. Those features are expected to be built into Apple’s upcoming iOS 18 and possibly include the long-rumored AppleGPT (which will not be called AppleGPT). That LLM-based chatbot may be baked into Apple’s Siri assistant, or offered as a separate app.
Already, the latest vintage of Apple iPhones contain the Apple A17 Pro chip, which supports advanced AI capabilities.
Senior Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan predicts that Apple will nudge the smartphone world into the era of an AI-powered “IntelliPhone,” which is a horrible name that I hope never catches on.
Already, some 16% of globally shipped smartphones integrate AI capabilities, predicted to rise to 54% by 2028, according to a report by the market research firm Canalys.
Several very large smartphone companies are marketing smartphones as “AI phones”:
Samsung: The Galaxy S24 series prominently features AI capabilities, including Galaxy AI, which offers tools like Live Translate, Circle to Search, and AI-enhanced camera features.
Google: The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are marketed with significant AI features such as Magic Editor, Best Take, and on-device generative AI capabilities through the Gemini model.
Xiaomi: The Xiaomi 14 series includes AI features like AI Portrait and various AI-enhanced photographic modes.
Motorola: The Moto Edge 50 series includes AI features such as Generative Wallpapers and AI-enhanced camera tools like Adaptive Stabilization and Magic Eraser.
Asus: The Zenfone 11 Ultra includes AI features like live translation, noise cancellation, and generative wallpaper creation.
We can expect to see a host of AI phones from startups as well. At Mobile World Congress 2024, a company called Telekom showcased a concept AI phone that works without regular smartphone apps. Instead, it uses AI to perform tasks that would typically require apps. This concept phone aims to streamline user interactions by predicting and generating interfaces based on context and user intentions. It’s not clear how feasible this idea is with the current state of AI.
How phones will fork
It’s likely that AI features will divide the market into two increasingly distant categories.
Smartphone makers like Apple will push privacy-focused AI processing on a chip inside the phone, which will initially incentivize upgrading to newer and more powerful (and more expensive) hardware. A new generation of high-end AI phones will offer super-fast connectivity and huge memory. They’ll be able to cache streams of video for video-inclusive multimodal AI.
The “Generative AI Phone Industry Whitepaper,” jointly released by Counterpoint Research and MediaTek, forecasts that a billion high-end AI smartphones will exist by 2027. (Note that MediaTek is a fabless semiconductor company with a strong business interest in the future of smartphone hardware.)
But budget-minded phone makers will focus on using the phone only for its camera and connectivity, dumbing down the chips (and thus driving down the cost) and accessing AI in the cloud.
How AI will kill the smartphone
Smartphone companies will roll out a host of new AI features, and I think they’ll prove popular. AI will not only bring ChatGPT-like answers, but also greater personalization, better performance, stronger privacy and security, better battery life, more useful health monitoring, more options for creative expression, especially in photo apps, and eventually even lower prices.
Budget smartphone buyers will love the features, plus the low cost, of cloud-AI phones.
In both cases, AI will probably become the dominant feature and the main interface that people will use. AI usage encourages voice in both directions — we’ll talk to AI through our phones, and AI will talk back. Or AI will harvest video, audio, and text and give us information by talking or showing words and pictures on the phone.
But here’s why this outcome means trouble for the smartphone hardware industry.
The great thing about AI is that it’s software-upgradable. When you buy a phone, the phone gets better mainly through software updates, not hardware updates. It will become increasingly difficult for companies like Apple to convince buyers to shell out $1,000 for a new phone every couple of years, when the features they prize most are upgradable with changes to cloud services or with software updates to the phone.
AI also changes the interface game. As we’re talking back and forth with AI agents, people will use earbuds and, increasingly, AI glasses to interact with AI chatbots. The glasses will use built-in cameras for photo and video multimodal AI input.
As glasses become the main interface, the user experience will likely improve more with better glasses (not better phones), with improved light engines, speakers, microphones, batteries, lenses, and antennas. With the inevitable and inexorable miniaturization of everything, eventually a new class of AI phones will emerge that won’t need wireless tethering to a smartphone at all, and will contain all the elements of a smartphone in the glasses themselves.
Smartphones will be with us for many years to come. And we can look forward to a wide range of experimental wearable devices, improved smart watches, AI car windshields, AI earbuds, AI everything. But I believe that AI smart glasses will replace smartphones as the go-to, every day, all day device that the public relies upon.
Glasses will prove to be the winning device, because glasses can position speakers within an inch of the ears, hands-free microphones within four inches of the mouth and, the best part, screens directly in front of the eyes. Glasses can be worn all day, every day, without anything physically in the ear canal. In fact, roughly 4 billion people already wear glasses every day. The addition of AI electronics will be a trivial burden for these wearers and a popular choice even for those with perfect vision.
The AI glasses singularity, where more people buy AI glasses than smartphones, is a few years away — a very few years. But I’m sure it will happen. And that’s why companies like Apple and Google are applying for a dizzying range of patents for the technology that will power the AI glasses revolution.
In 2011 Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, asserted in a Wall Street Journal essay that “software is eating the world.” He was right, of course. But in this decade it’s AI software, specifically, that’s eating our world.
And very soon, AI software will eat the smartphone world, too.
Nvidia this week announced that more than a dozen robotics manufacturers have adopted the company’s digital twin platform to copy physical factories and recreate them in a real-time 3D graphics collaboration platform.
The technology lays the ground for a future where autonomous factories run by AI-enabled robots can more efficiently make robots and other equipment by studying the inefficiencies of physical plants.
“The era of robotics has arrived. Everything that moves will one day be autonomous,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. “We are working to accelerate generative physical AI by advancing the NVIDIA robotics stack.”
Nvidia’s package of five software products is designed to create virtual factories for simulation and testing. The ultimate goal, Nvidia said, is making warehouses and distribution centers highly efficient and safer for their human “coworkers,” and to act as intelligent human “assistants” for repetitive or ultra-precise tasks.
For example, the Isaac Manipulator — one part of the Isaac Robotics Platform — can perceive, understand, and interact with a factory environment and create virtual robotic arms that can then be studied and tested to create better physical robotics.
Included in Nvidia’s robotics stack is its Omniverse for simulation applications, Project GR00T, a GPU-accelerated simulation platform that creates humanoid AI-foundation models running on NVIDIA’s new Blackwell SoC architecture. The Omniverse platform provides developers with the building blocks, APIs, and micro-services to create physically accurate world-scale simulations of existing robotics plants; 3D simulation apps can run in Nvidia’s Omniverse Cloud APIs through the early access program or through an SDK they can purchase.
Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer Foxconn is using Nvidia’s Omniverse platform along with several partner tools to build its digital twin with software. “Our digital twin will guide us to new levels of automation and industrial efficiency, saving time, cost and energy,” Young Liu, Foxconn chairman said in a blog post.
Foxconn, which operates more than 170 factories worldwide, said its new “virtual plant” pushes the state of the art in industrial automation. It’s the digital twin of a new factory in Guadalajara, a hub of Mexico’s electronics industry and allows Foxconn’s engineers to virtually define processes and train robots so the physical plant runs at a higher efficiency.
“To design an optimal assembly line, factory engineers need to find the best placement for dozens of robotic arms, each weighing hundreds of pounds,” Madison Huang, Nvidia’s director of product marketing, wrote in the blog. “To accurately monitor the overall process, they situate thousands of sensors, including many networked video cameras in a matrix to show plant operators all the right details.”
For example, the robot arms may learn how to pick up an Nvidia Blackwell server and place it on an autonomous mobile robot (AMR). The arms can use Isaac Manipulator’s capabilities to find inspection paths for products, even when objects are placed in the way.
“With an estimated 10 million factories worldwide, the $46 trillion manufacturing sector is a rich field for industrial digitalization,” Huang said.
Qualcomm has announced its entry into the PC processor market with its Snapdragon X series chipsets. These new chips — Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus — are designed specifically for Windows PCs and promise to usher in a new era of “Copilot+ PCs” with advanced AI capabilities and extended battery life.
“The PC is reborn,” Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon said while making the announcement at Computex 2024. “Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon X Elite are the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever built with AI integrated throughout the system and can deliver multi-day battery life.”
Qualcomm, so far, has been primarily focusing on making chips for mobile devices under its Snapdragon brand.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite offers up to 2.6 times the NPU performance per watt compared to competitors like the Apple M3 and up to 5.4 times compared to the Core Ultra 71. Furthermore, the Qualcomm Oryon CPU in Snapdragon X Elite promises up to 51% faster CPU performance at ISO power, matching peak PC CPU performance at 65% less power, the statement added.
“The Qualcomm AI Hub allows developers to deploy a data model within five minutes on devices powered by Snapdragon chips, whether on their own or from Qualcomm Technologies’ growing collection of pre-optimized, ready-to-use AI models. The new Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows provides the ideal hardware platform for these developers, with an accelerated Snapdragon X Elite chipset and a popular, stackable form factor,” Aron added.
Big PC makers joining the bandwagon
Leading PC manufacturers like Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, and Microsoft voiced their support for the Snapdragon X Series for Copilot+ PCs, highlighting the potential for a new era of intelligent personal computing.
“The PC is being Reborn, and it’s changing what consumers can expect from their devices,” Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft said. “Copilot+ PCs represent an inflection point for our entire industry. And it’s only possible because of the collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies.”
The initial set of over 20 Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus processors are available for pre-order now and can be purchased from major retailers starting June 18, the statement added.
“We’re excited to extend our relationship with Qualcomm Technologies into Copilot+ PCs,” said Jason Chen, Chairman and CEO of Acer.
There’s no doubt the AI PC revolution is here with promises of unlocking new levels of productivity and efficiency,” Sam Burd, president of Client Solutions Group at Dell Technologies said on the development. “Dell is all-in on this AI PC era, evidenced by our comprehensive portfolio of AI PCs which now includes devices powered by Snapdragon X Series. Users can benefit from extraordinary performance, battery life, and new AI experiences to take back time in their day and focus on the tasks that matter most.”
This move by Qualcomm has the potential to significantly shake up the PC landscape. With promises of faster performance, longer battery life, and innovative AI features, Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs could be a game changer for Windows users.
While the constant clamor masks it, there is life beyond generative AI (genAI) for Apple at next week’s WWDC 2024 — where its operating systems will ne getting a make-over. Here’s what to expect from the company’s most widely used platform, iOS 18.
I’ve focused here on improvements designed to help users get things done. It’s also important to bear in mind that not every rumored feature appears; some show up later, and as of now there’s speculation some AI features will require an iPhone 15 series (or newer) device.
Developers first
Naturally for a developer-focused show, Apple will want to show what it has done to make life easier for them. The star could be genAI support wrapped up within Xcode to help developers build code swiftly and accurately. (Think GitHub Copilot for the Apple ecosystem, only with better privacy and security protection.) These tools will be of great use, which is potentially why one of the WWDC 2024 taglines is “Swiftly Developing.”
What’s coming in Siri — a summary
After months of leaks, we can surmise the next iPhone OS will offer easier navigation, improved interfaces, additional security and privacy features, as well as a more contextually capable Siri that will be able to do more for you than before (called internally, “Grey matter”).
Catch Up
The feature lets Siri provide a summarized overview of all a user’s recent notifications. I imagine this will be user-defined, so it means you’ll be able to review incoming messages from people and apps you want to hear from more than summarizing everything.
2. Smarten up
Siri also gains the capacity to automatically identify when a response is required. As you use your device Siri will identify important people, companies, events, locations, dates and other data to hone the options it provides. I think that means Siri should become capable of identifying whether you should attend a meeting or speak to a person, even if you have not made a note of it. The Journal app might be part of this, creating smart reminders and alerts about important notifications, emails and other items you might have missed.
3. Summarize
Apple has developed its own Ajax large language model (LLM) AI that can do useful things like summarize text, provide a summary of website content, or provide transcription services (such as by transcribing audio recordings).
4. Search
Searching the web using Spotlight is expected to improve as a consequence of Apple’s move to license ChatGPT tech from OpenAI.
5. Chatter
Siri also turns into a better and more responsive chatbot if you want to spend time chatting with your iPhone.
6. More control
Bloomberg tells us Apple is also working to give Siri the power to send and delete emails, open documents, move items between folders and other complex tasks — but warns these may not appear until 2025.
Messages improves
While I think enterprise users will be most pleased that Apple is expected to introduce RCS support in Messages with iOS 18, other improvements include new in-message Tapback icons to give users a wider selection of potential reactions, and the capacity to animate individual words. You’ll also be able to share higher quality videos and images with Android-using colleagues than beforeS.
Making Mail more useful
Mail needs far more attention than it gets. It really should integrate more effectively and in a more GUI-led way with applications, documents, and tools. I want Mail to become the ultimate PIM for any user, as capable for enterprise use as for anyone else. Apple took strides toward this last year with the introduction of email reminders, scheduled sending and an “unsend” function. This year, it plans additional functionality, including potential email responses you can automatically use. Calendar will also integrate with the Reminders app, so you can create reminders from within Calendar.
Settings – simplified
If you get lost while attempting to manage critical Settings on your iPhone, you’re not alone. Identifying the relevant setting isn’t always so straightforward, and the nesting of these doesn’t necessarily conform to your personal subjective opinion of where they should be. Why is Apple’s tool to collect your “significant locations” data hidden right at the bottom of the last page in Privacy & Security>Location Services>System Services, for example?
The good news (hopefully) is that Apple intends on overhauling Settings in favor of a cleaner, easier to search and explore interface. Settings on the Mac (and iPad, presumably) will get the same treatment.
Accessibility — the keys to new futures
Apple seems to be taking a really close look at how AI can augment existing accessibility tools across its systems. That’s what’s so important about the eye-tracking tools it says will appear on iPhones and iPads later this year. These will let you navigate what’s on screen and activate on-screen elements with your glance. In combination with Siri, this could make for a powerful user interface advance that’s just as useful on a Mac or visionOS device.
App-specific improvements
It will be possible to record and transcribe audio directly into the Notes app. This feature will also enable AI-created summaries. Photos gains powerful new image editing workflows and LLM-boosted commands and Control Center gets better controls for music and smart home devices.
Smarter everything
Apple devices work well together but don’t always work as well as you need. Why can’t you use your Apple Watch to easily get other devices to play music or otherwise handle content? This could change with iOS 18, which is now expected to be better able to handle tasks across devices.
The other stuff
You’ll be able to create a more harmonious Home screen with the capacity to change app icon colors. You’ll also be able to arrange icons as you wish on that screen, rather than being confined to the traditional grid layout.
One more thing – switch better
You can also expect improved tools to help Android users migrate to iPhone and iPhone users move to the other mobile platform. Apple has already committed to introducing such tools as part of its efforts to comply with the EU’s DMA. This extends to Live Photos support, which will be converted to Motion Photos when migrated to Android.
The new features are expected to appear first as a developer beta at or around WWDC and ship with the final iOS 18 release this fall.
Did you know Google has its own team collaboration app á la Slack or Microsoft Teams? It’s called Google Spaces, and it’s understandable if you’re not aware of it — Spaces looks a lot like Google Chat, and that’s because it’s technically an extension of it. Google Spaces is also integrated into Gmail and has close ties to other Google apps including Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and Tasks.
Anyone with a Google account can use Spaces for free, although some advanced features are available only with a paid Google Workspace plan. We’ll take you through the steps of setting up and using Spaces to collaborate with your co-workers.
How Google Spaces differs from Google Chat
Because Google Spaces and Chat look and work similarly, there may be confusion as to why you’d want to use Spaces over the other.
Google Chat is a basic chat interface where you can have one-on-one or group text chats with colleagues. Chat can be used in any web browser, or you can have the Chrome browser install a separate desktop Chat app. The desktop app, a Progressive Web Application (PWA) that runs in any operating system, looks identical to the web app but without the browser interface around it. There are also Google Chat apps for Android and iOS that offer most, but not all, features of the web and desktop apps.
Think of Spaces as Google Chat but with more functions for collaboration. You create a “space,” which is similar to a Google Chat session, but you give this space a name and (optionally) a description of its purpose. You invite other people to be members of the space, and then you and the other members can chat, collaborate on documents, assign tasks, and more.
You can create multiple spaces, each of which you’ve invited specific people to take part in. So you could create a space for discussing your business’ finances, and the people you invite to it would include co-workers who handle money issues. Then you could create another space for planning travel to an upcoming convention.
If you’re familiar with Slack or Microsoft Teams, Google Chat itself is like direct messages in Slack or Chat sessions in Teams, whereas Google Spaces is similar to channels in those apps.
You can get to Google Spaces from either Gmail or Google Chat in your web browser, or from the Google Chat desktop app.
From Google Chat: On the panel that runs along the left side of the page, you’ll see a “New chat” button followed by three main sections: Shortcuts, Direct messages and, a bit further down the panel, Spaces. When expanded, the Spaces area shows all the spaces you’ve created or joined.
You can access Spaces via Google Chat…
Howard Wen / IDG
If you don’t see this panel in Chat, click the three-bar icon at the top-left corner of the screen to open it.
From Gmail: On the toolbar that runs along the left side of the page, click the Chat icon. Here you’ll see a panel similar to the one in Google Chat, with “New chat” at the top, followed by sections for Shortcuts, Direct messages, and Spaces.
…or via Gmail.
Howard Wen / IDG
If you don’t see the Chat icon (or this toolbar) on your Gmail page: Click the gear icon on the upper right corner. On the “Quick settings” panel that opens, click Customize under the subheading “Chat and Meet.” This will open another panel: check the Google Chat box and then click Done. You’ll be prompted to reload the Gmail web page. The toolbar and Chat icon will then appear on your Gmail main page.
2. Create your first space
Let’s create a space.
On the panel that runs along the left side of the page in either Gmail or Google Chat, click the New chat button and then select Create a space on the small panel that opens.
Another panel opens. Enter a name for your new space.
Type in a name for your space and optionally add an avatar.
Howard Wen / IDG
Under some paid Google Workspace plans, you’ll have the option to make a new space restricted (a user or group must be added to the space by an existing space member) or discoverable (the space will be visible to everyone in the organization, and any user with a shared link can join).
If you want to assign an avatar to the space, click face icon to the left of the name, then select an option from the panel that appears. For example, you could use a money icon to represent a space where you and your co-workers will work on your business’ budget.
Next, click the Create button.
The name of your new space appears on the panel to the left, and your new space opens in the main window.
The new space has been created.
Howard Wen / IDG
If you like, you can enter info about the new space, such as its purpose. Click the name of the space at the top of the main window and select Space details from the menu that appears. On the panel that appears, type in a brief description and/or guidelines for using the space. When you’re done, click Save.
You can optionally add a description and guidelines for your space.
Howard Wen / IDG
3. Add members to your space
Next, you’ll want to invite people to collaborate in your space. In the middle of the main window, click the Add members button. On the panel that appears, enter or select the names of people or groups in your Google Contacts, or in your Google Workspace organization, who you want to collaborate with in this space.
Adding members to a new space.
Howard Wen / IDG
At any time you can add more people to your space, change how they can interact with it, or remove their access to it. In the main window showing your currently opened space, click the name of your space. On the menu that opens, click Manage members.
A new pane opens in the main window that lists the members of this space. You can click the three-dot icon to the right of any member’s name to change their access (Block or Remove from space) or send a direct message to them (via Google Chat). You can also designate someone as a “space manager.” This means they’ll be able to make changes to your space, such as inviting or removing people.
You can give other members managerial rights for your space.
Howard Wen / IDG
You can also add more people to the space by clicking the + Add button. This will open a panel that helps you search for people in your Google contacts or Workspace organization. After you select people you want, click the Add button — they’ll get an email containing a link that they can click to access your space.
Another way to invite people a space is to simply send them a link to it. (They must be a Gmail user or have a Google Workspace account.) Click the name of your space, and from the menu that appears, select Copy link to this space. You can paste this link in a new email or another messaging format, or even publish it on a website. But remember that anyone who clicks this link can join your space automatically, so adding specific members is more advisable for business use.
4. Post messages in your space and tag people in them
Inside the message composing bar, write a message and click the arrow icon to the right to post it to your space. This composing bar has icons that you can click, such as to change the formatting of the words that you type inside it, insert an emoji, or insert a gif animation.
If you want to post a message directed to one or more people who are in your Google or Workspace contacts (whether or not they are members of this space), type @ followed by their first name, and click their full name when it appears in the composing bar. Once you post your message, they’ll get an email and a notification in their Google Workspace that you’ve mentioned them in this space.
You can tag specific members of a space in a message to draw their attention to it.
Howard Wen / IDG
Once a message with a tagged person is posted, anyone in the space can hover their mouse pointer over the tagged person’s name to open a pop-up card that lists their contact info and other information they’ve provided in their profile.
Hover over an @ mention in a message to see the person’s contact card.
Howard Wen / IDG
If you want to send a (private) direct message to someone in the space rather than posting it in the main chat area, click the space name at the top of the main window, select Manage members on the menu that appears, click their name in the members list, and choose the speech bubble icon (Send message) on the card that pops up. Or, if they’ve posted a message in the main chat window for the space, simply click their avatar.
5. Reply to messages in your space
Anyone in the space can post more messages in the main chat window. If you want to reply to a specific message, hover your mouse pointer over the message. On the toolbar that appears, click either the speech balloon icon (Reply in thread) or the bent arrow (Quote in reply).
Hover over a message to see a toolbar with reply options.
Howard Wen / IDG
Reply in thread: Clicking this opens a Thread panel along the right. On it, you can post a response to the message.
Replying in a thread.
Howard Wen / IDG
Then, in the main chat area for your space, it’ll be added to the tally of responses below the original message. Anyone can click this number to open the Thread panel and see all the replies to this message.
Threaded replies don’t clutter up the main chat window but are easily accessible.
Howard Wen / IDG
Quote in reply: When you click this, you write your reply as though it’s a regular message. The original message that you’re responding to will appear inside your own message when you post it to this space.
A quote reply appears in the main window with a recap of the original message for context.
Howard Wen / IDG
To see a list of all the messages in your space that have threaded responses: Toward the upper right, click the speech bubble icon (Active threads). This will open the “Active threads” panel to the right. Click a message to view the responses that have been posted to it.
Viewing all active threads for the space.
Howard Wen / IDG
To follow a thread, move your mouse pointer over it in the “Active threads” panel and select the Follow button. You’ll receive notifications when new replies are added to the thread.
6. Share and collaborate on documents in your space
Right below the name of your space, click the Shared tab. On the page that opens in the main area, click Add.
Shared files will appear on this tab. Click Add to get started.
Howard Wen / IDG
This opens a panel that lets you select a document that’s stored in your Google Drive account (Recent or My Drive), shared with you through Google Drive (Shared with me), or stored on your computer (Upload). Select the document that you want to share and click the Insert button.
Select a file to share with your space.
Howard Wen / IDG
You’ll be taken to the main chat window in your space. A large thumbnail of the document that you selected will appear in the message composing bar. You can enter text to go along with this thumbnail. Then click the arrow at the lower right.
A panel will open with the following options:
Share with the space: By default, others in the space will be able to add comments to the document but can’t edit it. Click Commenter to change this to either Viewer or Editor. Viewer means others in the space can only view it, while Editor allows them to make changes to it if it’s a Workspace document (Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides) or a Microsoft 365 document (Excel, PowerPoint, or Word).
Setting access permissions for a shared file.
Howard Wen / IDG
Allow anyone with the link to view: If you create a link to this message with this document attached after you post it to the space, then anyone who accesses this message with this link can view this document.
(To create a direct web link to a message that’s posted in the chat window: Move your mouse pointer over the message. On the menu that opens, click the three-dot icon and then select Copy link.)
Don’t give access: Nobody will be able to open this document in this space. They’ll only see it as an attachment in your message posted to the space.
Once you’ve made your choice from the options above, click Send message. Your message with the document attached will be posted to the space.
The document is posted in the main chat window.
Howard Wen / IDG
Others in the space can click the document’s thumbnail in your message to open it in a new page. If it’s a Workspace document, it’ll be opened with the appropriate web app (Google Docs, Sheets or Slides) in a new browser tab.
Note: There are two other ways to post a document to a space:
Inside the message composing bar, click the up arrow icon (Upload file). But this only lets you upload a document that’s on your PC’s local storage.
If you know the filename of the document in your Google Drive, type @ inside the message composing bar, followed by the first few letters of its filename. A menu will pop open that should list the document that you want — just click its filename and it’ll be attached to your message.
7. Add meetings and tasks to your space
In addition to chats and shared documents, Google Spaces can directly interact with two other Workspace apps for collaboration: Google Meet and Google Tasks.
Add meetings
You and others in your space can add a link to a Google Meet video meeting in a message post. Inside the message composing bar, click the video camera icon. This will generate a link to a new meeting. After you post your message, any person in your space can click the thumbnail representing the meeting to join it (or start it if nobody is currently in the meeting).
Adding a meeting to a space.
Howard Wen / IDG
Add tasks
Spaces also works with Google Tasks, the task manager in Google Workspace. You can assign a task to someone who’s in your space.
Right below the name of your space, click the Tasks tab. On the page that opens in the main area, click Add space task. This will open a blank form below for a new task.
Creating a task for the space.
Howard Wen / IDG
Enter a name for this new task, and a description for it right below that. Then click Add date/time, which will open a mini calendar to let you select a deadline for this task. Click Assign to open a panel that will list all the members of this space; pick the person or persons who you want to assign this task to. Finally, click the Add button, and the task will appear in the tasks list in your space.
The new task appears in the tasks list.
Howard Wen / IDG
This new task will also be posted as a message in your space’s chat window, with the names of the assignee(s) tagged in the message. And when a task is assigned to you in Spaces, it also appears in your My Tasks list in Google Tasks.
The new task also appears in the space’s chat window.
Howard Wen / IDG
When the task is completed, go to the space’s Tasks page again and click the circle to the left of the task name. This will mark it as complete. Or, if you’re the assignee, you can mark the task done in Google Tasks, and it will be marked as complete in the space as well.
Marking a task complete.
Howard Wen / IDG
Note: You can also turn a message into a task. Move your mouse pointer over the message; on the toolbar that opens, click the three-dot icon. Then on the small menu that opens, click Create space task.
8. Add more tools to your space
You can install apps in a space to add more features to it. Most of these are by third-party developers, but a few are Google’s. Examples include chatbots that you can program to give automated responses to questions posted by people in your space, quick polls for space members to respond to, and a scheduler that helps you find the best times for space members to meet. There are also apps that integrate with other enterprise services such as Salesforce and Workday.
To browse through the apps that you can install to a space, open the space in the main window and click the + icon that’s to the left of the message composition bar. On the panel that opens, click View more apps for Chat.
Browsing for apps to add to a space.
Howard Wen / IDG
On the panel that appears, click an app to find out more about it, and click Add to Space to install it. (Your IT department may limit which apps you can install.)
9. Create or join more spaces
To create more spaces, just click the New chat button at the top of the left panel and click Create a space.
To look for spaces created by others in your organization that you can join, select New chat > Browse spaces. On the “Browse spaces” screen that appears, you can search for a space by name, or use the dropdown to the right of the search bar to filter by Spaces I have joined, Spaces I haven’t joined, and All spaces. Click Preview to get a peek at the space or click Join to join the space immediately.
Looking for more spaces to join.
Howard Wen / IDG
All the spaces you’ve created or joined appear in the Spaces list in the left panel. Click any space name to open it in the main window, or, to open the space in a small pop-up window, move your mouse pointer over it and click the rectangle-in-rectangle icon (Open in a pop-up).
10. Manage your spaces
By default, when a new message or task is posted in a space, you’ll hear a notification sound and the space name will be bolded and moved to the top of the Spaces list in the left panel. You can change those defaults by moving your mouse pointer over the name of a space and clicking the three-dot icon to open a small menu:
Use a space’s three-dot menu to control its notifications and other settings.
Howard Wen / IDG
Mark as unread/Mark as read: Click this to bold or unbold the space name in your spaces list.
Pin: When you click this, the space will be moved to the top of your list of spaces and remain there.
Mute/Unmute: Mute moves the space to the bottom of the spaces list and stops notifications except when you’re @ mentioned. Unmute returns the space to normal status.
Notifications: Clicking this opens a small panel where you can choose to be notified for all new messages and replies to threads you follow, to be notified only for replies to threads you follow or when you’re @ mentioned, or to turn off all notifications. You can also mute/unmute the conversation from this panel.
The three-dot menu also has options to Leave the space and to Block & Report it.
You have even more options for managing a space when it’s open in the main window. Click the name of the space to open a menu that lets you manage its members; change the name, description, and other details about the space; and manage notifications as described above.
In the main window for a space, click its name to see a menu with a wealth of options for managing it.
Howard Wen / IDG
On this menu, you can also select Apps and integrations to manage the apps installed to the space; Turn off history to delete messages after 24 hours; and, if you created the space, Delete to delete the space and all its contents entirely.
Now that you know how to create, join, work in, and manage Spaces, let the team collaboration begin!
Did you know Google has its own team collaboration app á la Slack or Microsoft Teams? It’s called Google Spaces, and it’s understandable if you’re not aware of it — Spaces looks a lot like Google Chat, and that’s because it’s technically an extension of it. Google Spaces is also integrated into Gmail and has close ties to other Google apps including Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and Tasks.
Anyone with a Google account can use Spaces for free, although some advanced features are available only with a paid Google Workspace plan. We’ll take you through the steps of setting up and using Spaces to collaborate with your co-workers.
How Google Spaces differs from Google Chat
Because Google Spaces and Chat look and work similarly, there may be confusion as to why you’d want to use Spaces over the other.
Google Chat is a basic chat interface where you can have one-on-one or group text chats with colleagues. Chat can be used in any web browser, or you can have the Chrome browser install a separate desktop Chat app. The desktop app, a Progressive Web Application (PWA) that runs in any operating system, looks identical to the web app but without the browser interface around it. There are also Google Chat apps for Android and iOS that offer most, but not all, features of the web and desktop apps.
Think of Spaces as Google Chat but with more functions for collaboration. You create a “space,” which is similar to a Google Chat session, but you give this space a name and (optionally) a description of its purpose. You invite other people to be members of the space, and then you and the other members can chat, collaborate on documents, assign tasks, and more.
You can create multiple spaces, each of which you’ve invited specific people to take part in. So you could create a space for discussing your business’ finances, and the people you invite to it would include co-workers who handle money issues. Then you could create another space for planning travel to an upcoming convention.
If you’re familiar with Slack or Microsoft Teams, Google Chat itself is like direct messages in Slack or Chat sessions in Teams, whereas Google Spaces is similar to channels in those apps.
You can get to Google Spaces from either Gmail or Google Chat in your web browser, or from the Google Chat desktop app.
From Google Chat: On the panel that runs along the left side of the page, you’ll see a “New chat” button followed by three main sections: Shortcuts, Direct messages and, a bit further down the panel, Spaces. When expanded, the Spaces area shows all the spaces you’ve created or joined.
You can access Spaces via Google Chat…
Howard Wen / IDG
If you don’t see this panel in Chat, click the three-bar icon at the top-left corner of the screen to open it.
From Gmail: On the toolbar that runs along the left side of the page, click the Chat icon. Here you’ll see a panel similar to the one in Google Chat, with “New chat” at the top, followed by sections for Shortcuts, Direct messages, and Spaces.
…or via Gmail.
Howard Wen / IDG
If you don’t see the Chat icon (or this toolbar) on your Gmail page: Click the gear icon on the upper right corner. On the “Quick settings” panel that opens, click Customize under the subheading “Chat and Meet.” This will open another panel: check the Google Chat box and then click Done. You’ll be prompted to reload the Gmail web page. The toolbar and Chat icon will then appear on your Gmail main page.
2. Create your first space
Let’s create a space.
On the panel that runs along the left side of the page in either Gmail or Google Chat, click the New chat button and then select Create a space on the small panel that opens.
Another panel opens. Enter a name for your new space.
Type in a name for your space and optionally add an avatar.
Howard Wen / IDG
Under some paid Google Workspace plans, you’ll have the option to make a new space restricted (a user or group must be added to the space by an existing space member) or discoverable (the space will be visible to everyone in the organization, and any user with a shared link can join).
If you want to assign an avatar to the space, click face icon to the left of the name, then select an option from the panel that appears. For example, you could use a money icon to represent a space where you and your co-workers will work on your business’ budget.
Next, click the Create button.
The name of your new space appears on the panel to the left, and your new space opens in the main window.
The new space has been created.
Howard Wen / IDG
If you like, you can enter info about the new space, such as its purpose. Click the name of the space at the top of the main window and select Space details from the menu that appears. On the panel that appears, type in a brief description and/or guidelines for using the space. When you’re done, click Save.
You can optionally add a description and guidelines for your space.
Howard Wen / IDG
3. Add members to your space
Next, you’ll want to invite people to collaborate in your space. In the middle of the main window, click the Add members button. On the panel that appears, enter or select the names of people or groups in your Google Contacts, or in your Google Workspace organization, who you want to collaborate with in this space.
Adding members to a new space.
Howard Wen / IDG
At any time you can add more people to your space, change how they can interact with it, or remove their access to it. In the main window showing your currently opened space, click the name of your space. On the menu that opens, click Manage members.
A new pane opens in the main window that lists the members of this space. You can click the three-dot icon to the right of any member’s name to change their access (Block or Remove from space) or send a direct message to them (via Google Chat). You can also designate someone as a “space manager.” This means they’ll be able to make changes to your space, such as inviting or removing people.
You can give other members managerial rights for your space.
Howard Wen / IDG
You can also add more people to the space by clicking the + Add button. This will open a panel that helps you search for people in your Google contacts or Workspace organization. After you select people you want, click the Add button — they’ll get an email containing a link that they can click to access your space.
Another way to invite people a space is to simply send them a link to it. (They must be a Gmail user or have a Google Workspace account.) Click the name of your space, and from the menu that appears, select Copy link to this space. You can paste this link in a new email or another messaging format, or even publish it on a website. But remember that anyone who clicks this link can join your space automatically, so adding specific members is more advisable for business use.
4. Post messages in your space and tag people in them
Inside the message composing bar, write a message and click the arrow icon to the right to post it to your space. This composing bar has icons that you can click, such as to change the formatting of the words that you type inside it, insert an emoji, or insert a gif animation.
If you want to post a message directed to one or more people who are in your Google or Workspace contacts (whether or not they are members of this space), type @ followed by their first name, and click their full name when it appears in the composing bar. Once you post your message, they’ll get an email and a notification in their Google Workspace that you’ve mentioned them in this space.
You can tag specific members of a space in a message to draw their attention to it.
Howard Wen / IDG
Once a message with a tagged person is posted, anyone in the space can hover their mouse pointer over the tagged person’s name to open a pop-up card that lists their contact info and other information they’ve provided in their profile.
Hover over an @ mention in a message to see the person’s contact card.
Howard Wen / IDG
If you want to send a (private) direct message to someone in the space rather than posting it in the main chat area, click the space name at the top of the main window, select Manage members on the menu that appears, click their name in the members list, and choose the speech bubble icon (Send message) on the card that pops up. Or, if they’ve posted a message in the main chat window for the space, simply click their avatar.
5. Reply to messages in your space
Anyone in the space can post more messages in the main chat window. If you want to reply to a specific message, hover your mouse pointer over the message. On the toolbar that appears, click either the speech balloon icon (Reply in thread) or the bent arrow (Quote in reply).
Hover over a message to see a toolbar with reply options.
Howard Wen / IDG
Reply in thread: Clicking this opens a Thread panel along the right. On it, you can post a response to the message.
Replying in a thread.
Howard Wen / IDG
Then, in the main chat area for your space, it’ll be added to the tally of responses below the original message. Anyone can click this number to open the Thread panel and see all the replies to this message.
Threaded replies don’t clutter up the main chat window but are easily accessible.
Howard Wen / IDG
Quote in reply: When you click this, you write your reply as though it’s a regular message. The original message that you’re responding to will appear inside your own message when you post it to this space.
A quote reply appears in the main window with a recap of the original message for context.
Howard Wen / IDG
To see a list of all the messages in your space that have threaded responses: Toward the upper right, click the speech bubble icon (Active threads). This will open the “Active threads” panel to the right. Click a message to view the responses that have been posted to it.
Viewing all active threads for the space.
Howard Wen / IDG
To follow a thread, move your mouse pointer over it in the “Active threads” panel and select the Follow button. You’ll receive notifications when new replies are added to the thread.
6. Share and collaborate on documents in your space
Right below the name of your space, click the Shared tab. On the page that opens in the main area, click Add.
Shared files will appear on this tab. Click Add to get started.
Howard Wen / IDG
This opens a panel that lets you select a document that’s stored in your Google Drive account (Recent or My Drive), shared with you through Google Drive (Shared with me), or stored on your computer (Upload). Select the document that you want to share and click the Insert button.
Select a file to share with your space.
Howard Wen / IDG
You’ll be taken to the main chat window in your space. A large thumbnail of the document that you selected will appear in the message composing bar. You can enter text to go along with this thumbnail. Then click the arrow at the lower right.
A panel will open with the following options:
Share with the space: By default, others in the space will be able to add comments to the document but can’t edit it. Click Commenter to change this to either Viewer or Editor. Viewer means others in the space can only view it, while Editor allows them to make changes to it if it’s a Workspace document (Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides) or a Microsoft 365 document (Excel, PowerPoint, or Word).
Setting access permissions for a shared file.
Howard Wen / IDG
Allow anyone with the link to view: If you create a link to this message with this document attached after you post it to the space, then anyone who accesses this message with this link can view this document.
(To create a direct web link to a message that’s posted in the chat window: Move your mouse pointer over the message. On the menu that opens, click the three-dot icon and then select Copy link.)
Don’t give access: Nobody will be able to open this document in this space. They’ll only see it as an attachment in your message posted to the space.
Once you’ve made your choice from the options above, click Send message. Your message with the document attached will be posted to the space.
The document is posted in the main chat window.
Howard Wen / IDG
Others in the space can click the document’s thumbnail in your message to open it in a new page. If it’s a Workspace document, it’ll be opened with the appropriate web app (Google Docs, Sheets or Slides) in a new browser tab.
Note: There are two other ways to post a document to a space:
Inside the message composing bar, click the up arrow icon (Upload file). But this only lets you upload a document that’s on your PC’s local storage.
If you know the filename of the document in your Google Drive, type @ inside the message composing bar, followed by the first few letters of its filename. A menu will pop open that should list the document that you want — just click its filename and it’ll be attached to your message.
7. Add meetings and tasks to your space
In addition to chats and shared documents, Google Spaces can directly interact with two other Workspace apps for collaboration: Google Meet and Google Tasks.
Add meetings
You and others in your space can add a link to a Google Meet video meeting in a message post. Inside the message composing bar, click the video camera icon. This will generate a link to a new meeting. After you post your message, any person in your space can click the thumbnail representing the meeting to join it (or start it if nobody is currently in the meeting).
Adding a meeting to a space.
Howard Wen / IDG
Add tasks
Spaces also works with Google Tasks, the task manager in Google Workspace. You can assign a task to someone who’s in your space.
Right below the name of your space, click the Tasks tab. On the page that opens in the main area, click Add space task. This will open a blank form below for a new task.
Creating a task for the space.
Howard Wen / IDG
Enter a name for this new task, and a description for it right below that. Then click Add date/time, which will open a mini calendar to let you select a deadline for this task. Click Assign to open a panel that will list all the members of this space; pick the person or persons who you want to assign this task to. Finally, click the Add button, and the task will appear in the tasks list in your space.
The new task appears in the tasks list.
Howard Wen / IDG
This new task will also be posted as a message in your space’s chat window, with the names of the assignee(s) tagged in the message. And when a task is assigned to you in Spaces, it also appears in your My Tasks list in Google Tasks.
The new task also appears in the space’s chat window.
Howard Wen / IDG
When the task is completed, go to the space’s Tasks page again and click the circle to the left of the task name. This will mark it as complete. Or, if you’re the assignee, you can mark the task done in Google Tasks, and it will be marked as complete in the space as well.
Marking a task complete.
Howard Wen / IDG
Note: You can also turn a message into a task. Move your mouse pointer over the message; on the toolbar that opens, click the three-dot icon. Then on the small menu that opens, click Create space task.
8. Add more tools to your space
You can install apps in a space to add more features to it. Most of these are by third-party developers, but a few are Google’s. Examples include chatbots that you can program to give automated responses to questions posted by people in your space, quick polls for space members to respond to, and a scheduler that helps you find the best times for space members to meet. There are also apps that integrate with other enterprise services such as Salesforce and Workday.
To browse through the apps that you can install to a space, open the space in the main window and click the + icon that’s to the left of the message composition bar. On the panel that opens, click View more apps for Chat.
Browsing for apps to add to a space.
Howard Wen / IDG
On the panel that appears, click an app to find out more about it, and click Add to Space to install it. (Your IT department may limit which apps you can install.)
9. Create or join more spaces
To create more spaces, just click the New chat button at the top of the left panel and click Create a space.
To look for spaces created by others in your organization that you can join, select New chat > Browse spaces. On the “Browse spaces” screen that appears, you can search for a space by name, or use the dropdown to the right of the search bar to filter by Spaces I have joined, Spaces I haven’t joined, and All spaces. Click Preview to get a peek at the space or click Join to join the space immediately.
Looking for more spaces to join.
Howard Wen / IDG
All the spaces you’ve created or joined appear in the Spaces list in the left panel. Click any space name to open it in the main window, or, to open the space in a small pop-up window, move your mouse pointer over it and click the rectangle-in-rectangle icon (Open in a pop-up).
10. Manage your spaces
By default, when a new message or task is posted in a space, you’ll hear a notification sound and the space name will be bolded and moved to the top of the Spaces list in the left panel. You can change those defaults by moving your mouse pointer over the name of a space and clicking the three-dot icon to open a small menu:
Use a space’s three-dot menu to control its notifications and other settings.
Howard Wen / IDG
Mark as unread/Mark as read: Click this to bold or unbold the space name in your spaces list.
Pin: When you click this, the space will be moved to the top of your list of spaces and remain there.
Mute/Unmute: Mute moves the space to the bottom of the spaces list and stops notifications except when you’re @ mentioned. Unmute returns the space to normal status.
Notifications: Clicking this opens a small panel where you can choose to be notified for all new messages and replies to threads you follow, to be notified only for replies to threads you follow or when you’re @ mentioned, or to turn off all notifications. You can also mute/unmute the conversation from this panel.
The three-dot menu also has options to Leave the space and to Block & Report it.
You have even more options for managing a space when it’s open in the main window. Click the name of the space to open a menu that lets you manage its members; change the name, description, and other details about the space; and manage notifications as described above.
In the main window for a space, click its name to see a menu with a wealth of options for managing it.
Howard Wen / IDG
On this menu, you can also select Apps and integrations to manage the apps installed to the space; Turn off history to delete messages after 24 hours; and, if you created the space, Delete to delete the space and all its contents entirely.
Now that you know how to create, join, work in, and manage Spaces, let the team collaboration begin!
As enterprises strive to leverage data in every way possible, corporate privacy policies detail exactly what they’re trying to get away with — and are written in the fervent hope that no one ever reads the details.
In recent months, privacy policies have veered wildly off course. Instead of being a document that comforts customers/prospects that the company is protecting privacy as much as possible, many now spell out the most frightening scenarios possible — on the off chance the company opts to try any of them.
It’s the same approach the legal beagles (and the companies they serve) take with patents, most of which they have zero intent to turn into a product or service. And it’s the same approach taken by people who write up prospectuses: here are 50 things that might go wrong. But with privacy, these throw-spaghetti-again-the-wall “maybe-maybe” scenarios are going to scare away customers and prospects. These approaches do the opposite.
How bad have things gotten? Let’s look at what Instacart — the $3 billion delivery giant that is legally dubbed Maplebear — did when it updated its privacy policy on May 17.
The Instacart mess
Instacart’s new policy gives it the right to retain and sell a wide range of customer details, including psychiatric diagnoses, birthdate/age and even license plate numbers. It declared plans — for the moment — to ignore Do Not Track browser settings and said it might choose to share customers’ personal health information “in connection with a business transaction or bankruptcy proceeding.” (Note: choosing to sell a customer’s information to a third party is, by definition, a business transaction.)
Instacart did not respond to a request for comment.
The privacy policy lists all of the information Instacart collects and reserves the right to use or share that information when it wants to. What it collects depends on the services a customer uses.
A license plate number, for example, becomes an issue when a customer does curbside pickup. Health information becomes a potential issue if medical prescriptions are delivered, and if pharmacy deliveries are used, Instacart says it will retain, use and potentially share “your past, present or future physical or mental health or condition; the provision of health care to you; or your past, present, or future payment for the provision of health care.”
Though Instacart wrote that it will not disclose personal health information “without prior written consent,” it lists various exceptions, including the vague and broad “in connection with a business transaction or bankruptcy proceeding.”
Instacart “may collect or receive personal information relating to you” from “law enforcement, public health or other governmental authorities.” It might “use your Personal Information” to “respond to requests and communications from law enforcement authorities or other government officials.”
Is law enforcement now using Instacart deliveries to gather information? Will the company be adding “arrest warrant” to the items that can be delivered within 30 minutes?
Instacart adds, “We may also disclose your Personal Information to other parties if we believe it necessary or appropriate” to “protect our operations and those of any of our affiliates; (c) to protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, and/or those of others; or (d) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit damages that we may sustain.”
Really? In other words, it is saying to customers that it won’t sell your personal information — unless it’s in their business interests to do so. How comforting.
What is perhaps the contrarian part of this privacy policy is where Instacart explicitly says it will ignore “Do Not Track” (DNT) requests for privacy. This is the developing standard for web browsers that tells websites you visit that you do not want information about your online activity collected over time and across third-party websites or online services. “Although we do our best to honor the privacy preferences of our users, we do not interpret or respond to DNT or other similar signals from your browser at this time.” Good to know.
And finally, while Instacart will allow you to ask that personal information be deleted, “to do so, we require you to submit up to three pieces of Personal Information that we then match against the account information we have on file for you.” Good luck with that.
Send in the feds?
“This does not come close to complying with basic privacy principles,” said Mark Rasch, an attorney who specializes in cybersecurity and is the former head of the US Justice Department’s high-tech crimes unit. “This is written in such a way that a reasonable consumer might think that (Instacart) is protecting privacy when in fact they are doing the exact opposite.”
He noted that even some seemingly innocuous references — such as that retail partners can share information — are so vague they open the door to limitless possibilities.
“What information is being shared?” Rasch said. “About what and what are you doing with it? It’s written in such a way that it gives the illusion that suggests what it will be used for but it doesn’t state that outright. This means that Instacart can, without a warrant or subpoena, tell police in Alabama the name of every woman who has been prescribed abortion pills. It doesn’t mean that they are going to, but it means that they can. And why would the police be giving Instacart information? It’s so that Instacart can monitor people for law enforcement purposes.”
He added that these kinds of privacy policies are “driven by fear of litigation. They want to make it far more difficult to inadvertently violate it. But that defeats the whole purpose of a privacy policy.”
In 2024, these privacy policies have become macabre lists of the worst possible things a company might try to get away with. Is that really something we want to create, let alone announce and invite customers to read? How about going back to what privacy policies are supposed to be, which is a description of how the company is protecting customers’ privacy?
If the corporate lawyers balk — and that is indeed what lawyers do best — simply tell them the sad truth: “Chill out. If any execs decide to violate the policy, we can simply update it right before you let them do anything. And then we only need to change that one sentence to permit that one horrific action.”
It’s hardly moral or ethical, but it’s likely as close any enterprise Legal department can get these days.
Remember, a lot of the privacy rules now in place assume that violations would happen by the companies that must gather the data. In other words, for healthcare data governed by HIPAA, the assumption has been that potential violators would be hospitals, doctor offices, labs and pharmacies, and other medical professionals.
No one gave much thought to the idea that a grocery delivery company would have access to such information. If they engaged in this behavior, could they be sued? Absolutely. (These are the kinds of cases that Instacart does notwant to get in front of a jury of their customers’ peers.) But can government agencies fine or otherwise punish them? That’s unclear.
Law, meet loophole.
One of the few agencies that could, in theory, punish such behavior from any business is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). But the FTC’s main tactic involves accusing businesses of fraudulent behavior. In other words, it cracks down on companies not doing what they tell customers they will do.
These kind of extreme privacy policies are precisely designed to thwart any such FTC actions. There’s no fraud if they publicly announce what they are going to do. That’s a key reason lawyers love these overly broad privacy policies. And it’s the best reason these types of privacy policies must be shut down.
As enterprises strive to leverage data in every way possible, corporate privacy policies detail exactly what they’re trying to get away with — and are written in the fervent hope that no one ever reads the details.
In recent months, privacy policies have veered wildly off course. Instead of being a document that comforts customers/prospects that the company is protecting privacy as much as possible, many now spell out the most frightening scenarios possible — on the off chance the company opts to try any of them.
It’s the same approach the legal beagles (and the companies they serve) take with patents, most of which they have zero intent to turn into a product or service. And it’s the same approach taken by people who write up prospectuses: here are 50 things that might go wrong. But with privacy, these throw-spaghetti-again-the-wall “maybe-maybe” scenarios are going to scare away customers and prospects. These approaches do the opposite.
How bad have things gotten? Let’s look at what Instacart — the $3 billion delivery giant that is legally dubbed Maplebear — did when it updated its privacy policy on May 17.
The Instacart mess
Instacart’s new policy gives it the right to retain and sell a wide range of customer details, including psychiatric diagnoses, birthdate/age and even license plate numbers. It declared plans — for the moment — to ignore Do Not Track browser settings and said it might choose to share customers’ personal health information “in connection with a business transaction or bankruptcy proceeding.” (Note: choosing to sell a customer’s information to a third party is, by definition, a business transaction.)
Instacart did not respond to a request for comment.
The privacy policy lists all of the information Instacart collects and reserves the right to use or share that information when it wants to. What it collects depends on the services a customer uses.
A license plate number, for example, becomes an issue when a customer does curbside pickup. Health information becomes a potential issue if medical prescriptions are delivered, and if pharmacy deliveries are used, Instacart says it will retain, use and potentially share “your past, present or future physical or mental health or condition; the provision of health care to you; or your past, present, or future payment for the provision of health care.”
Though Instacart wrote that it will not disclose personal health information “without prior written consent,” it lists various exceptions, including the vague and broad “in connection with a business transaction or bankruptcy proceeding.”
Instacart “may collect or receive personal information relating to you” from “law enforcement, public health or other governmental authorities.” It might “use your Personal Information” to “respond to requests and communications from law enforcement authorities or other government officials.”
Is law enforcement now using Instacart deliveries to gather information? Will the company be adding “arrest warrant” to the items that can be delivered within 30 minutes?
Instacart adds, “We may also disclose your Personal Information to other parties if we believe it necessary or appropriate” to “protect our operations and those of any of our affiliates; (c) to protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, and/or those of others; or (d) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit damages that we may sustain.”
Really? In other words, it is saying to customers that it won’t sell your personal information — unless it’s in their business interests to do so. How comforting.
What is perhaps the contrarian part of this privacy policy is where Instacart explicitly says it will ignore “Do Not Track” (DNT) requests for privacy. This is the developing standard for web browsers that tells websites you visit that you do not want information about your online activity collected over time and across third-party websites or online services. “Although we do our best to honor the privacy preferences of our users, we do not interpret or respond to DNT or other similar signals from your browser at this time.” Good to know.
And finally, while Instacart will allow you to ask that personal information be deleted, “to do so, we require you to submit up to three pieces of Personal Information that we then match against the account information we have on file for you.” Good luck with that.
Send in the feds?
“This does not come close to complying with basic privacy principles,” said Mark Rasch, an attorney who specializes in cybersecurity and is the former head of the US Justice Department’s high-tech crimes unit. “This is written in such a way that a reasonable consumer might think that (Instacart) is protecting privacy when in fact they are doing the exact opposite.”
He noted that even some seemingly innocuous references — such as that retail partners can share information — are so vague they open the door to limitless possibilities.
“What information is being shared?” Rasch said. “About what and what are you doing with it? It’s written in such a way that it gives the illusion that suggests what it will be used for but it doesn’t state that outright. This means that Instacart can, without a warrant or subpoena, tell police in Alabama the name of every woman who has been prescribed abortion pills. It doesn’t mean that they are going to, but it means that they can. And why would the police be giving Instacart information? It’s so that Instacart can monitor people for law enforcement purposes.”
He added that these kinds of privacy policies are “driven by fear of litigation. They want to make it far more difficult to inadvertently violate it. But that defeats the whole purpose of a privacy policy.”
In 2024, these privacy policies have become macabre lists of the worst possible things a company might try to get away with. Is that really something we want to create, let alone announce and invite customers to read? How about going back to what privacy policies are supposed to be, which is a description of how the company is protecting customers’ privacy?
If the corporate lawyers balk — and that is indeed what lawyers do best — simply tell them the sad truth: “Chill out. If any execs decide to violate the policy, we can simply update it right before you let them do anything. And then we only need to change that one sentence to permit that one horrific action.”
It’s hardly moral or ethical, but it’s likely as close any enterprise Legal department can get these days.
Remember, a lot of the privacy rules now in place assume that violations would happen by the companies that must gather the data. In other words, for healthcare data governed by HIPAA, the assumption has been that potential violators would be hospitals, doctor offices, labs and pharmacies, and other medical professionals.
No one gave much thought to the idea that a grocery delivery company would have access to such information. If they engaged in this behavior, could they be sued? Absolutely. (These are the kinds of cases that Instacart does notwant to get in front of a jury of their customers’ peers.) But can government agencies fine or otherwise punish them? That’s unclear.
Law, meet loophole.
One of the few agencies that could, in theory, punish such behavior from any business is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). But the FTC’s main tactic involves accusing businesses of fraudulent behavior. In other words, it cracks down on companies not doing what they tell customers they will do.
These kind of extreme privacy policies are precisely designed to thwart any such FTC actions. There’s no fraud if they publicly announce what they are going to do. That’s a key reason lawyers love these overly broad privacy policies. And it’s the best reason these types of privacy policies must be shut down.
