Google Chat redesign targets enterprise users with enhanced AI capabilities and Slack/Teams-like features

Google Chat has been redesigned with a focus on enterprise users, featuring a fresh look and improved AI capabilities, positioning itself against competitors like Microsoft Teams or Slack. There is a new completely redesigned home view, featuring a list of all recent conversations and mentions, as well as the list of Spaces (channels).

One of the main new features is Huddles, a component similar to one found in Slack, which enables spontaneous audio calls from Google Meet to foster team coordination and prompt discussions. It also supports video chats, providing a flexible communication tool for team members. The redesign also boosts the number of community participants it can handle, accommodating up to 500,000 members. This increased capacity aids in managing large-scale projects and encourages collaboration on a larger scale.

Another noteworthy addition to Google Chat is Google Duet AI (recently launched for Workspace), a feature that lets users interact with AI as if it were another team member. Duet AI can help with various tasks, such as content checking and document summarization, search for documents or information within Google Drive or Gmail, smart replies, catch up on missed conversations and access AI tools. You can take a look at the list of new official features here.