Google Chat is losing its Gemini side panel on 26 August 2026, and the conversation history stored in it will not come along. Google announced the change in a Workspace Updates post dated 19 August, which introduces a replacement called Ask Gemini in Chat. The replacement is only for paid Workspace tiers, and anything you asked the old side panel is not transferred into it. If you have used the side panel for anything you want to keep, the window to export it closes when the rollout reaches your account.
What happens to the Gemini side panel in Google Chat
Three things go at once. The side panel itself disappears from Chat. Gems — the custom, pre-prompted assistants people set up for repeat tasks — can no longer be reached from inside Chat, though Google says they remain available in the Gemini side panel of other Workspace apps, so a Gem built for Docs or Gmail is unaffected. And the history is severed:
Your conversation history from the Gemini side panel in Chat will not migrate to the new Ask Gemini surface in Chat.
— Google, Workspace Updates, 19 August 2026
Google’s stated route out is an export. Admins can export Gemini conversation history including the Chat side panel’s, and end users can download their own if their organisation permits it. There is a practical trap in how that export is labelled: Google notes that in the Data Export tool and in Google Takeout, this data sits under Gemini in Workspace, not under Google Chat. Anyone who exports their Chat data and assumes the Gemini conversations are inside it will come away with an archive that is missing exactly the thing they were trying to save.
Who actually gets Ask Gemini in Chat
This is not a feature for free Google accounts, and it is not a consumer Android story dressed up as a work one. Google lists availability as Business Standard and Business Plus, Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus, and the Google AI Pro for Education add-on. Everyone else on a lower or free tier is outside it.
There are two more gates. Admins need Gemini in Workspace in Chat and Workspace Intelligence for all apps enabled — with those on, the feature arrives by default. End users have to be enrolled in Workspace Smart Features. And the rollout only applies to accounts whose Google account language is English; users on other language preferences keep the existing side panel for now, with Google saying more languages will follow.
The date needs reading carefully too. 26 August is when a gradual rollout starts, for both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains, and Google allows up to 15 days for the feature to become visible. So the side panel will not vanish for every eligible account on the same morning, which also means the export window is staggered rather than fixed.
What Ask Gemini in Chat does
Once it lands, Ask Gemini appears under Shortcuts on the left of Google Chat, or via Ctrl + G on ChromeOS and Windows, Command + G on macOS. Google describes it as a unified command line for work, powered by Workspace Intelligence, and lists five things it handles:
- Search across Workspace data — pulling from Gmail, Drive and Calendar to answer a question
- Generate content — drafting updates or creating images without leaving the conversation
- Catch up on discussions — summarising conversations in one place
- Manage tasks and events — scheduling meetings and handling tasks in-flow
- Organise work into sessions — separate threads you can return to over time
Google says it carries over the side panel’s core jobs: finding files, capturing action items, summarising conversations. On capability, then, this looks like a relocation rather than a downgrade — apart from the Gems removal.
The part worth watching after 1 October
Google is running promotional access to higher usage limits through 1 October 2026, after which usage limits apply, with details promised in the Help Center beforehand. That framing is worth naming plainly: the version of Ask Gemini that people form habits around over the next six weeks is a more generous one than the version they will be using in the autumn, and Google has not yet said by how much. If your team builds a workflow on top of it during the promotional period, budget for the possibility that it gets rationed later.
The immediate action is smaller and more urgent. If there is anything in your Google Chat Gemini side panel history you would miss — a research thread, a set of drafts, notes you never moved elsewhere — export it before the rollout reaches your account, and look under Gemini in Workspace when you do. Gems themselves are safe; you can still reach them from Gemini’s side panel in other Workspace apps such as Docs. It is only the Chat entry point, and the Chat history, that goes.
