Google Hangouts Gets Slack-Like Update

Going forward, Google Hangouts volition exist dissever into 2 services: Hangouts See and Hangouts Chat.

As its name suggests, Meet is designed to "make joining meetings effortless and so that people tin be as productive as they are when they're face-to-face up," Managing director of Product Direction for Hangouts Scott Johnston wrote in a blog post Thursday. Chat is an "intelligent advice app for teams that takes direct messaging in Hangouts and evolves it to reverberate the way modernistic teams talk business."

Meet is available today and will gradually roll out to all 1000 Suite users over the next few weeks. If you're interested in trying out Chat, you tin can use via Google'due south Early Adopter Program. Meet aims to make even 30-person video conferences glitch free. Just transport all participants a link to join your meeting, or click on the link you receive, and voila—no need to create an account or download annihilation to bring together.

"If you're dialing in from a conference room, your laptop or using the dedicated mobile app, just a few clicks and y'all're in," Johnston wrote. Google has been testing the service over the past three months with the help of Braintree, whose Manager of Systems Administration, Jerome Knapp, chosen Meet "one of the most frictionless video conferencing systems we've experienced."

The new Chat app, meanwhile, seems a lot like Slack. You can bring teams together in virtual rooms to "create a lasting home for each project, with threaded conversations [a feature Slack simply added] so your squad's progress is easy to follow," Johnston wrote.

Conversation is integrated with G Suite, meaning yous tin can hands share content from Bulldoze and Docs, and view photos and videos right in your conversations.

In that location'due south as well a search function, only perchance the coolest feature of all: Chat tin can automatically schedule meetings for yous. Just type "@see find us a time to meet next week," and an intelligent bot will pencil a meeting into Google Agenda when everyone's available.

Google is also working with some third-political party app makers to integrate their services into Chat, including Asana, Box, Prosperworks, and Zendesk.

Well-nigh Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo is PCMag's expert on fitness and smart dwelling products. Instruction yoga for nearly 10 years has helped her in evaluating a range of connected wellness products including fitness trackers, heart rate monitors, rowers, smart scales, stationary bikes, strength preparation machines, treadmills, and more. Angela also tests smart home devices from her ranch in Florida, including air purifiers, kitchen appliances, and robot vacuums, simply to proper name a few.