The next phase of digital whiteboarding for Google Workspace

Google Workspace is an open and extensible productivity platform, and we’re committed to partnering with industry-leading companies to bring the most innovative collaboration experiences to Workspace. Over the past couple of years, we’ve heard from customers that whiteboarding tools like FigJam by Figma, Lucidspark by Lucid Software, and the visual workspace Miro help their teams work better together. As these tools have grown more capable, offering advanced features such as an infinite canvas, use case templates, voting, and more, we’ve decided to leverage our partner ecosystem for whiteboarding in Workspace and focus on core content collaboration across Docs, Sheets, and Slides. To that end, in late 2024 we will wind down the Jamboard whiteboarding app as well as continue with the previously planned end of support for Google Jamboard devices. 

We're grateful to the consumers, educators, students, and businesses who have used Jamboard since its launch in 2016. While Jamboard users make up a small portion of our Workspace customer base, we understand that this change will impact some of you, and we’re committed to helping you transition by:

1. Deeply integrating the whiteboarding tools you know and love like FigJam, Lucidspark, and Miro across Workspace, so you can include them when scheduling in Calendar, collaborating in Meet, or sharing content in Drive
2. Bringing these whiteboarding solutions to the Series One Board 65 and Desk 27 devices by Avocor, so you can visually collaborate using a physical device and stylus
3. Providing a retention and migration path for Jamboard data so you don’t lose any of the collaborative work that’s been created within your organization

Advanced whiteboard experiences from trusted partners 

FigJam, Lucidspark, and Miro all allow you to launch a whiteboard directly within a Google Meet call to enable remote and hybrid collaboration. You can download these apps from the Google Workspace Marketplace today and begin using their advanced features, including templates, drawings, reactions, and comments, so you can hold dynamic brainstorms and bring your best ideas to life. 

We also understand the unique needs of educational institutions, so we’ve worked with Figma, Lucid, and Miro to provide whiteboarding capabilities that cater to students and educators, whether they’re in primary school, secondary school, or higher education. To learn more about each offering, see which is best for your educational institution, and get guidance and resources for using these tools, please visit the Help Center.

Whiteboarding capabilities in the conference room or classroom

Earlier this year, Avocor launched two next-generation video conferencing and whiteboarding devices, the Series One Board 65 and Desk 27, to succeed the original Jamboard device. With built-in Google AI features, studio-grade audio, and seamless video conferencing through Google Meet, these devices are designed for immersive team collaboration.

Today, we’re announcing that FigJam, Lucidspark, and Miro will create integrations for these devices, with expected delivery at the end of 2023 and early 2024, depending on the partner. Soon you’ll not only have a choice of three robust third-party whiteboarding experiences inside a Meet call, you’ll also be able to use them outside a call as standalone whiteboarding tools on the Board 65 and Desk 27.

Transition support for Jamboard users

Over the coming months, we’ll provide Jamboard app users and admins clear paths to retain their Jamboard data or migrate it to FigJam, Lucidspark, and Miro with just a few clicks, well before the Jamboard app winds down in late 2024. We’ll provide additional details on our Workspace Updates Blog and Help Center in the coming weeks. For Jamboard device admins, you can learn more about the end of support and auto update expiration for Jamboard on our Help Center, as well as Series One Board 65 and Desk 27. We will also work directly with educational institutions to compensate them for their Jamboard devices.

With a strong foundation of industry-leading partnerships in place, we’re committed to ensuring our users have a smooth transition from Jamboard to Avocor devices and our partner whiteboarding apps. It’s exciting to see the Workspace ecosystem delivering these new capabilities and we look forward to having more customers use them to better ideate, collaborate, and innovate together.