Gmail continues the previously delayed rollout of visual updates to its email composition tools

Originally announced all the way back in October of last year, Google is finally making good on its promise to roll new features into the compose tool for Gmail. An overhaul to the visual compose field, including the ‘To’ section, ‘Cc’ and even ‘Bcc’ make it easier to have certainty that you’re sending things to or including the correct people.

To achieve this, each smart contact chip or ‘avatar chip’, as Google is dubbing it, despite the field it appears in, will now show the profile image of the recipient. Additionally, a new right-click menu is being added to make it easier to see a recipient’s details, such as their name, email address, and more.

Better indicators for when a user is outside of your organization and visual indicators for when you’ve already added a user as a recipient will all also be present once the update finally rolls out. As previously stated, this was supposed to have been available to everyone with a Workspace or G Suite Basic and Business license, but for some reason, development on this came to a halt.

[July 7, 2022]: Beginning today, these features will resume rolling out slowly — we anticipate to be complete by the end of September 2022.

Workspace Updates Blog

At the top of the Workspace Updates blog, Google placed in big red text an update that indicates that this is back on schedule after some performance issues, stating that the features discussed above will begin rolling out slowly. Apparently, they ought to be available to everyone by the end of September of this year. As a reminder, the only ones unable to benefit from these updates will be those with a Workspace for Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, or Teaching and Learning Upgrades license.