What's New in Gather 2.0

Strike the perfect balance of focus & presence! Customize notifications about nearby conversations, or enable “auto listen” to automatically tune in (even with Gather in the background). Go to Settings > Notifications and Settings > Audio to adjust.

You've been beta testing our next-gen platform, Gather 2.0, and it's almost ready to launch! Free access continues through September 15th. Preview what's coming and explore new pricing.

Celebrate your wins with teammates in your area. When you strike the Gong, nearby colleagues will hear the sound and receive a notification so they can easily join the celebration.

To add the Gong, open the Main Menu and go to Decorate Desk > Interactive

Need some background noise? Play music in your meeting area while waiting for others to join or during focused sessions. Pick from three playlists: Soft Ambience, Lofi Chill, or Simple Energy

Now you can display Gather in Light Mode or Dark Mode, or have it follow your computer’s settings to naturally switch throughout the day.

To select your mode, open the Main Menu and go to Settings > Appearance > Color Mode.

Share your Spotify activity while you’re online. When teammates click on your name or avatar, they’ll see what you’re currently listening to, creating opportunities to connect over your favorite tracks!

To connect Spotify, go to Main Menu > Settings > Integrations > Spotify and connect your account. Now whenever you listen to music, your teammates will be able to see what’s streaming.

Easily see what your engineering team is shipping with the new GitHub Dock. Hovering over this object shows a preview of recent pull requests, and clicking it provides even more details so you can encourage collaboration and keep work moving.

Add the GitHub dock to your workspace by opening the Main Menu and going to Decorate Desk > Interactive.

Refresh your look with new shirts and shoes! We've added four new clothing options for your avatar: Winchester collar shirt, Quarter-zip sweater, Scrubs top, and High-heel boot. To update your avatar's outfit, click your profile picture and choose Edit Profile. Customize your avatar to try out these new styles.

Decorate your virtual office with brand new objects. We've added a variety of new items like a bowl of ramen, hex lights, a long rectangular planter, a foosball table, and more!

Now you can easily invite teammates to cowork without cluttering everyone's calendar with optional meetings. To start a session, click on a coworking area and choose from three modes:

• Focused: Designed for deep work.
• Pomodoro: Based on the Pomodoro Technique: Focused intervals followed by short breaks.
• Freeform: A casual, unstructured session with no rules or set duration.

Anyone can join or leave these sessions at any time, making it natural and effortless to drop in and work together.

Previously, if someone requested to meet, you'd only receive a silent notification. Now, in addition to the notification, you'll hear a short chime alerting you to the request, so you never miss a spontaneous meeting invite again.

This sound will play when someone:

• Invites you to join an ongoing meeting
• Requests to start a meeting with you

We made a bunch of little updates to make your meeting chat experience smooth and seamless. A few highlights:

• Use markdown to format messages, for example *bold* or _italics_
• Type : to quickly search for an emoji by name, or use the new-and-improved emoji picker
• If you send a message that only contains an emoji, it will display in an extra large size
• Upload more file types. Images and gifs will be displayed in-line and other file types will be available for download.

When walking is too slow or you just feel like zipping around the office, hop onto your very own go-kart. Hold Shift while using the arrow or WASD keys to drive around.

If Gather is in the background or you’ve switched to a different browser tab, we’ll automatically dim the audio from nearby conversations to help you stay focused.

This setting is automatically enabled. To disable it and keep nearby conversations at full volume, go to Main Menu > Settings > Audio > Lower volume when tabbed away. Switch the toggle off.

Type / to send a quick chat message outside of meetings that’s visible to anyone near you. These messages display for a brief time above your avatar and in a small “Nearby Chat” window.

This gives you a new way to interact quickly with coworkers that doesn’t require a meeting.

See real-time GitHub activity right in Gather. Icons will float above engineers as they open and merge PRs, and you can click on individual profiles or team areas to view a list of recent PRs.

Give teammates real-time context about your work, making it easier to collaborate.

With App Status enabled, an icon appears next to your name in Gather when working in apps like GitHub, Figma, Spotify, Notion, and more.

Now you can have private conversations right at your desk without worrying about others overhearing or joining in. To make a conversation private: Click the Lock button directly under the videos or up in the top navigation bar. You’ll see several signs that the conversation is locked, so you can feel confident the conversation is private.

Customize your status and have it clear after a specified amount of time. Just click your profile picture at the bottom to set it. Teammates will see your status displayed in your profile card and the left side panel.

Mini Mode keeps you connected to your office while working in other apps. This compact window makes it easy to see who's around, join or start conversations, and mute nearby discussions — all without opening the full Gather app.

Don’t worry about manually setting your status before taking an external call. With this setting enabled, we’ll automatically detect external video links (such as Zoom, Google Meet, etc.) and update your status to Busy. We’ll even move your avatar into an empty meeting room so others can see you’re on a call. People on the same external call will join you in the Gather meeting room.

Quickly turn your devices on or off when it’s time to start or end a conversation.

• ⌘ + Shift + D for Macs
• Ctrl + Shift + D for Windows