In March of 2017, Google announced the early adopters program for Hangouts Chat for all its G Suite users. After almost a year of being in beta, the Hangouts Chat service is finally getting an official release. If you are unfamiliar with the project, Hangouts Chat is Google’s attempt to bring universal chatting experience which is integrated with all the G Suite apps. With the official launch today, Hangouts Chat joins the list of core G Suite services which includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Sheets, Google Docs, and more.
Hangouts Chat will help teams communicated with each other by either using direct messages or group conversations. With dedicated virtual rooms to house projects over time, threaded conversations, and more similar features, Hangouts Chat makes it simple to track progress and follow up tasks. Hangout Chats serves a variety of purposes:
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Easily work with other G Suite apps
The best feature of Hangouts Chat is that it is deeply integrated with all the G Suite tools. So, whether you want to send files from your Google Drive, collaborate on Docs, Sheets, and Slides, or more, Hangouts Chat will be available in real time helping you do all that.
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Use artificial intelligence to speed up workflows
When your teams collaborate in Chat, you can speed up manual work, like booking conference rooms, searching for files, and more using built-in artificial intelligence.
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Collaborate with colleagues around the globe
Hangouts Chat support 28 languages and each chat room that you create can host up to 8,000 members. So even your team is made up of very diverse people around the world, communication should not be an issue for regional groups.
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Extra Security
Chat builds on G Suite’s security-first ecosystem and offers an enterprise-grade solution that’s reliable and compliant. With integrated support for Vault, the application also allows admins to archive, preserve, search, and export Chat-specific data.
Third-Party Integration and Bots
Hangouts Chat also comes equipped with 25 bots which can help you speed up your workflow by automating your tasks. The bots are created by both Google and third-party companies which now can be integrated directly with your G Suite tools. Third-party bots include accounting bot from Xera, CRM bot from Salesforce, Customer Service bot from FreshDesk, and many more.
The bots can let you do many things, for example, the @GoogleDrive bot lets you know when files are shared with you, comments are made, or when people request access to your docs.
If you like what you see here, you can get started by going to chat.google.com on the web or download the app on your desktop or mobile devices. Hangouts Chat is a staged rollout and will be made available to G Suite customers in the next seven days.
