Emoji Reactions coming to Google Docs on the web

Recently, Google has been on an emoji kick, rolling out Emoji Reactions on many of its services such as Google Meet and YouTube. In a way, extended emoji support has even reached products like Gboard and Messages, but it appears that Google isn’t done yet. For example, Google has announced that Emoji Reactions are coming to Google Docs on the web for selected Workspace accounts.

The new feature is being rolled out as “a less formal alternative to comments to express your opinions about document content” and is adopting the latest version of the emoji set (Emoji 14.0). Additionally, the Emoji Reactions will share the same preferences set in Google Chat when it comes to skin tone and gender preferences. To access reactions in Docs, you will need to hover over any message or existing anchor, then click on the “Add reaction” icon, denoted by – you guessed it – an emoji. This will bring up the picker where you can choose the emoji you want to add or enter its search term to find it.

The feature started to roll out gradually yesterday for Rapid Release domains, while Scheduled Release domains will begin to see it on April 20th. It will take up to 15 days for full visibility and will be ON by default for the below Workspace tiers:

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus

** Not available to Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals,Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 

It’s good to see Google rolling out more fun, less formal features to strengthen their Workspace products’ feature set and appeal to a wider audience. I can see myself using Emoji Reactions everywhere now as long as Google products continue to support them. The only question remaining now is which Google product will support Emoji Reactions next.