Google’s popular business tool called Google Chat is getting some new features to make the experience easier for users. Neeraj Mishra, Product Manager at Google Chat mentioned 7 new features for the product.
After joining the AI race and introducing its chatbot platform, Google Bard, the tech giant is constantly adding new features to its products to make them more versatile. Recently, the company also announced the Duet AI feature for its Google Sheets.
READ| What is Google’s new Duet AI feature for Google Sheets?
What are the new features of Google Chat?
According to the Google Keyword Blog, these are the new features:
- “Create answers quickly with smart composing
- Edit and delete your messages
- Quote a message in a group chat
- Check read confirmation in group chat
- Hide inactive conversations
- Add apps for more features”
Smart Compose: Write Effectively in Google Chat
Starting with the ‘Smart Compose’ feature, which is already available on other Google apps making it familiar to most people. At its most basic, this feature gives users suggestions for completing sentences as they type.
This feature is presented in 5 different languages - English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
This feature is useful because it saves time and reduces typing effort by providing relevant phrases. Suggestions appear in a light gray color and the user can simply press the ‘Tab’ key to accept them.
The Google blog states, “Smart Compose, also available in Gmail and Google Docs, helps you quickly create replies in Chat, offering contextual suggestions that help reduce spelling and grammar errors. As you start typing in Chat and a suggestion appears, just tap tab to accept It.”
Edit and delete messages: a new way to take control of your chats
The next feature in the series is the ability to edit and delete messages, a feature that is long overdue for Google Chat. Users often make typos, grammatical errors, or even forget important information when using Google Chat for business purposes, which can make them look unprofessional.
With this new feature, users can now edit or even delete messages that were sent by mistake. Users can access this feature by hovering over a message they’ve sent and clicking the pencil icon.
The ability to quote a message in a group chat
Another feature introduced in Google Chat is the ability to reply to a specific message in a group chat. This feature is useful when a person wants to respond to a specific point that someone made in a conversation or when it is necessary to hold a conversation.
Source: Google
Google mentioned, “It’s easy to get lost in a group chat, especially if it’s moving fast and covering a lot of ground. To organize the conversation (and your thoughts), you can now quote the message in your reply.”
See who read your messages in Google Chat
Previously, users of Google Chat groups could only see if their message was delivered, but not who read it. This is a glaring omission on the part of Google, especially if the message is sent to a large group and the user wants to know if everyone has seen it.
Google has fixed this by adding a new feature that allows users in groups to see who has read their messages. When someone reads the message, their avatar will appear below the message. For large group conversations, you can hover over or tap a message to see the full list of people who have read it.
The feature will be available for group messaging this month. However, it is already available for mobile and web direct messaging.
New linking feature makes it easy to share resources
Sending a link in a group chat seems messy? Well, Google has also solved this problem by providing a feature that allows users to link text in their messages. This means that people can share links to websites, documents, or other resources without having to mention long URLs in their chat.
Source: Google
This feature is already available on Google Docs and Slides and is called the ‘Hyperlink’ feature. It will be rolling out to Android and web users of Google Chat in the coming weeks. Google Chat will now hide inactive conversations
Hide inactive chats to clean up your chat list
A cluttered interface can be frustrating and make it difficult for users to find conversations that interest users. That’s why Google Chat will now hide inactive conversations. This means that chats that have not been opened or have no new messages in the last 7 days will be hidden from view.
You can view hidden chats by clicking the “More” button. This feature will work if the user has more than 10 chats.
Source: Google
Here’s what the Google blog says: “Clutter builds up everywhere: on your desk, bookshelf, work surface, and even in your chats. If you have more than 10 chats or spaces, we’ll help you improve by hiding direct messages and spaces that have been inactive for the past seven days.”
Make Google Chat even more powerful with apps
Finally, allowing users to have more personalization space, Google Chat will now have the ability to add third-party apps to its platform. This means people can now download third-party apps like Asana, Giphy or Google Maps for their chats.
Source: Google
The feature hasn’t been released to the public yet, but Google will be rolling it out to users in the coming weeks.
In the end, these are just some of the new features that have been added to Google Chat. As Google continues to develop its platforms, it is likely that many new features will be introduced in the future. Besides, these features have been long awaited and make the platform more seamless.
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: newstars.edu.vn