What is Google Chat?

What is Google Chat?

Google Chat is a secure communications tool designed to provide easy business communications within the Google Workspace ecosystem.

With Google Chat, teams collaborate via text, build collaborative chat rooms, share documents, deliver presentations, and establish web conferences.

Google Chat

Google Chat was called Hangouts Chat and worked as a more business-oriented version of the consumer Hangouts. Google Chat expands on the features of the standard version of Hangouts by adding a plethora of team collaboration features and integrations.

How do I use Google chat?

Google Chat is easily accessible in Google Workspace. To access it, use the Google app launcher button in any Workspace application.

The app launcher appears as a gridded set of dots along the upper right-hand side of your screen. Click this grid, and a series of apps, including Gmail, Calendar, Contacts, and Drive, will appear. Chat will typically appear on the second line.

Once selected, a list of people that you can chat with will be populated along the left side of the screen. 

It’ll also provide you with data like presence information and whether specific colleagues are online. Click on the name to begin a conversation. Type in the intended message and click the send button, which is shaped like a triangle, to send.

Google Chat has some handy functions. The software uses predictive text options to automate replies. For example, if a coworker says, “Good afternoon,” Google will provide you a list of appropriate answers like, “Hello, how are you?”

Once a chat is established, you share spreadsheets and documents from Google Drive. Any participant will then be able to access the file via Google Docs. 

Additionally, adding things like video meeting links is done very quickly through the chat UI. Once placed in chat, Google Chat will provide a clickable meeting for colleagues to use.

What is the difference between Google Chat and Google Hangouts?

According to Google, Chat, “Is an intelligent communication app for teams that takes direct messaging in Google Hangouts and evolves it to reflect the way modern teams talk business.” 

As a result, Google Chat is something like the evolution of Hangouts. It grants that same one-on-one communication but expands on it to be more effective in a business setting.

Important features available in Hangouts like read receipts, video and audio conferencing, and image sharing are all available through Chat.  

In addition, more robust, collaboration-friendly features also come standard. 

These include:

Team Chat Channels: Conversations are converted into rooms in Google Chat. Slack users will find that this is like the channels feature. With rooms, your team will have a central location to share files, delegate tasks, and communicate during a project lifecycle. There are message threads for those looking to delegate individual tasks to specific team members.

Larger Video Chat Capacities: With Hangouts, you’re limited to 10 attendees, but Chat expands this thanks to its paid structure. With Chat, you’ll have a max of 250 participants for any video chat.

Google Meet Integration: This is probably one of the better features of Chat. When you want to set up a meeting, you simply tag Google Meet with the meeting attendees. After that, you only need to mention the proposed meeting date, and the calendar appointment is automatically created.