Gallery View Is Now Available to Everyone

Gallery view is now available to all workspaces. Create a card-based visual view from any sheet using the + menu or by asking the agent.

Create Dashboards, Timelines, and Folios from Chat

The + button in the chat input now includes Dashboard, Timeline, and Folio in the artifact type menu. Create any of these directly from the message input without going through the sidebar.

Improvements

• Slack typing indicator no longer gets stuck. The assistant mode typing indicator in Slack now clears correctly after a response completes.

Web Research with Perplexity

The agent can now search the web using Perplexity — ask it to research any topic and it returns citation-backed answers from live sources.

Task Step Gates

Task steps can now include gates — pause for human approval, auto-approve after a timeout, or route to a different step when rejected.

Comments on Sheet Cells [Beta]

Cell-level comments are now available on sheets — right-click any cell to add a comment, see indicators on commented cells, and filter the sidebar by sheet.

Share Meeting Summaries Publicly [Beta]

You can now share meeting summaries with anyone — no Obvious account required. Open any summarized meeting and click Share to get a public link.

Improvements

• Password Requirements Updated — Passwords now require a minimum of 12 characters (maximum 128). Changing your password signs you out of all other active sessions automatically.

Checklist View: Settings Panel [Beta]

Checklists now have a Settings panel, accessible from the ⋮ menu in the checklist header. Use it to customize field mappings and display behavior without touching the underlying sheet.

• Field mappings. Set which sheet fields drive the item title, completion status, assignee, due date, and visible inline labels.
• Group by. Organize items into collapsible sections by any field — category, owner, priority, or anything else on the sheet.
• Completed items. Choose the default visibility: Show, Dim, or Hide.
• Row density. Switch between Comfortable and Compact.
• Default mode. All (do-confirm) shows every item ready to check off; Focused (read-do) reveals items one at a time for step-by-step processes.
• Double verification. Require a second person to confirm each item — useful for launch checklists, compliance reviews, or any workflow where two sets of eyes matter.

Tasks: Choose an Agent Mode [Beta]

When creating or editing a task, you can now pick which agent mode runs it. Select from Auto, Fast, Deep Work, or Analyst depending on the complexity of the workflow. Tasks default to Auto if no mode is selected.

Notification Settings: Slack Toggle [Beta]

The Notifications settings page now shows your workspace’s Slack connection status and, when connected, a toggle to enable or disable Slack notifications for your account. Go to Settings → Notifications to set it up.

Faster Image Generation

Standard quality image generation is now 4x faster. The upgrade applies automatically — no changes needed on your end.

Agent Modes: Faster Default with Auto

Auto mode now delivers faster responses across everyday tasks while handling the same full range of work — documents, sheets, queries, and workflows. If you use Auto regularly, you’ll notice quicker turnaround without changing anything.

Custom Column Icons

Columns in sheets now support custom icons. Right-click any column header, select Set column icon, pick from hundreds of icons, choose a color, and apply. Icons appear in the column header alongside the column name. Remove them the same way.

A useful pattern: use a consistent color per field type — one for contact fields, another for status fields, a third for dates.

Highlight Sections of a PDF

Ask the agent to highlight specific content in a PDF and the highlights appear visually in the document. Search by text, narrow to a page range, or target specific element types — words, tables, paragraphs, or figures.

iOS: Contacts and Calendar

The Obvious iPhone app now connects to your native Contacts and Calendar. Create contacts, set up calendar events with recurrence rules, and list upcoming events by date range.

Improvements

• Workbook group settings now persist when you navigate away and return to a sheet.

Download Artifacts from the Toolbar

Documents, presentations, and workbooks can be downloaded directly from the artifact toolbar. Formats: PDF, Word, or Markdown for documents; PDF, PowerPoint, or HTML for presentations; CSV or Excel for workbooks.

Reorder Sidebar Sections by Dragging

Drag sidebar sections up and down to reorder them, and drag projects from one section to another.

Per-Section Sort and Display Settings

Each sidebar section now has a settings option. Choose how items are sorted and set a display limit.

Smarter @mention Search

Results now sort by relevance. Exact matches appear first, followed by names that start with what you’ve typed.

Improvements

• Real-time collaboration is more reliable. The document patch listener now registers before the editor initializes, and sync batching uses throttle for a regular cadence.

Timers & Reminders

Ask Obvious to remind you about something and it will — in the current thread, when the time comes. Set timers in natural language, create recurring reminders, and snooze when needed.

Improvements

• Files over 100 MB now upload automatically in chunks. Chunk size scales with file size — no configuration needed.
• Agents that hit their step limit are now continuable. The agent explains where it left off; reply to keep going.
• Pull request cards from GitHub can now be pinned to threads.

Conference Links in Event Descriptions

Obvious already pulled conference URLs from calendar events’ dedicated link field. Now it checks the location and description too — so if someone pasted a Zoom link into the event notes, Obvious still finds it.

Improvements

• Documents created by agents appear instantly. No more waiting for agent-written documents to show up in your browser.
• Images and PDFs in threads stay accessible permanently. File attachments in threads used to stop loading after an hour. Now they work indefinitely.
• Duplicating large projects no longer fails. Complex projects with many artifacts copy reliably.
• Bold text renders at the correct size. A display issue was shrinking bold text slightly. Fixed.
• Granola meeting times display in your timezone. No more mental math converting from UTC.
• Embedded charts in documents render correctly. Fixed a display issue with Plotly visualizations.
• The thinking indicator no longer flickers. Smoothed out a visual glitch in the message queue status bar.
• Agents handle longer documents without timing out. Extended the processing window for large document operations.
• Agent editing is more resilient with complex tables. Fixed an edge case where the agent could misformat tables during surgical edits.
• Failed agent threads can now recover. When a thread reports failure, the system can restart it automatically. If the restarted thread succeeds, the parent receives a revised success result replacing the earlier failure.
• Mermaid diagrams render correctly in dark mode. Fixed contrast and theme-switching issues with embedded diagrams.
• Table header icons match your theme. Column header icons in sheets now react properly when switching between light and dark mode.
• Agent errors are clearer when conversations get too long. Instead of a generic error, you’ll see a specific message explaining the conversation exceeded its context limit.
• Workspace switching is more reliable. Fixed a race condition that could send you back to the wrong workspace.
• Meetings search auto-focuses when opened. The search input in the meetings sidebar now activates immediately.

Checklist View

Turn a sheet into a structured checklist. Each row becomes a checkable task with progress tracking, drag-to-reorder, and clickable field tags (like status, owner, and date) you can edit without leaving the view. Checklists work well for step-by-step workflows, onboarding tasks, and QA runbooks. Create one from the + Add View menu on any sheet.

• Hide completed rows, show them inline, or push them to the bottom. Pick whatever keeps your focus.
• Drag to reorder rows in your checklist. The order persists across sessions.
• Progress bar tracks your completion and shows a banner when you’re done.
• Key fields display on each row as clickable tags you can edit with a single click.

Thread Orchestration and Agent Objectives

Agent threads can now be given a formal objective — a declared goal the thread must report on when complete. Parent threads receive structured status reports (success, failure, or needs input), and can batch multiple threads to wait for all of them before acting on results.

• Pause all / resume all controls for managing groups of active agent threads at once.
• Thread list now supports search filters and auto-expands results when a filter is active.
• Cross-project orchestration. Parent threads can spawn and message threads in other projects.

Templates and Community Templates

Save any project as a reusable template — Obvious converts your workbooks, documents, slides, and folios into a portable format you can reuse or share. Browse the From Community filter on the Templates page to find templates published by others.

• All artifact types convert automatically when saved as a template.
• Templates can include starter prompts that appear when someone uses the template.
• Favorited templates appear in your sidebar.

Granola Meeting Notes

Obvious now connects to Granola. Link your account in Connectors, and the agent can search your meeting notes, retrieve transcripts, and surface action items directly in your workspace.

• Meetings are now deep-linkable and shareable with their own URLs.
• RSVP status is visible for each participant without hovering.
• Manually entered meeting links are preserved when calendar data updates.

Notion Integration

Obvious can now read from your connected Notion workspace. Search pages, pull database contents, and bring Notion data into your projects. Connect via Connectors.