Google today announced that Google Sheets, its popular web-based spreadsheet application, is receiving a major performance update. When you perform common spreadsheet operations like running formulas, creating pivot tables, adding conditional formatting, and more, calculations will be done by Sheets in the background. Google has now doubled the speed of calculations on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers. This increase in speed will significantly improve your data-crunching experience on Google Sheets.
To achieve this improved performance, the Google Sheets team worked with the Chrome browser team. The calculations in Google Sheets are now powered by a new web technology called WasmGC (WebAssembly Garbage Collection). You can read in detail about how Google engineered this speed improvement here.
In addition to the improved calculation speed, Google is also working to reduce Sheets" initial load time and improve copy/paste and filter performance.
Apart from performance improvements, Google today also highlighted some new features that improve the overall Sheets experience. First, Gemini for Workspace will be available in Sheets via the new side panel experience, allowing you to easily summarize, analyze, and generate content. Since Gemini for Workspace has access to all other content including your email and other documents, you will be able to create a contextually relevant spreadsheet easily with fewer prompts.
Second, pre-built tables will allow you to easily get started without having to create a spreadsheet from scratch. Google has pre-built tables for popular scenarios including project management, event planning, inventory management, recruitment planning and more.
Third, the new tables feature includes an improved design that includes column types, filters, color coding, dropdown menus, and more. For example, if you are a salesperson tracking the different stages of open opportunities, the new tables feature can automatically align all inputs without you doing manual adjustments.
Finally, the conditional notifications feature will allow you to create custom rules to send email alerts when certain criteria are met. For example, when a specific column’s value is updated as "Completed", you can configure Conditional notifications to send an email to a particular person.
Source: Google