A free version of Google Chat will officially arrive in the first half of 2021. As we saw earlier this month, Google is launching the Hangouts migration with a “preview of the new Chat” for free, personal accounts.
Chat has long been just an app that can only be used for Workspace, but paying customers can invite anyone with a Gmail address to specific conversations. The company has spent the last year migrating businesses from Hangouts to Chat and Meet.
Google is now ready to make Chat available to free users who are still using Hangouts, so that the classic service can finally be suspended. As spotted by Ars TechnicaRon Amadeo, some users who open the standalone Google Chat app today, are greeted with the call “Welcome to Google Chat”.
Google Chat offers a new experience and features not found in Hangouts.
Because it is a preview of the new Chat, you may experience errors and other issues.
With this beta, you can reach and find any Hangouts contact you’ve saved, though group chat is not yet available today. Design-wise, Google Chat is a simple messaging application. However, there are some business-oriented features that consumers will have access to, including the ability to quickly search and insert files from Google Drive and to quickly create a calendar meeting.
Amadeo also points out that video calling is completely dependent on Google Meet. As such, video calls generate a link rather than start a call immediately. In the meantime, we expect Google Chat to be available in Gmail as a dedicated tab along with ‘Meet’.
The Google Chat Preview for Hangouts users is not yet widely available today. The “welcome” prompt does not appear on several accounts we reviewed today. According to Google’s previous guide, the transition option will be available “from the first half of 2021.” Hangouts conversations, contacts, and saved history will be migrated automatically.
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