Chat systems have become essential to the work environment, especially as many offices move to a remote model. Managers can get their messages across instantly, teams can coordinate faster, and employees even get a way of developing office relationships without needing to leave their desks. Despite this, miscommunication can still occur, especially if someone responds to multiple messages simultaneously or you need to reply to an older message. With Google Chat’snewest feature, it’s easier to understand who the message is for and what the user is responding to.
Afterrolling the feature outto select Workspace accounts in recent weeks, Google Chat is now allowingall usersto quote messages in replies. Using this quote feature, users can reply to a specific message while preserving the context for other participants. When quoting a message, a hyperlink is also created, allowing other users to see where that message happened in the conversation.
So even if you’re not a premium user, you can quote others and use the newsmart composefeature. Smart compose allows users to respond to messages with a single click or tap, providing contextually relevant suggestions generated by Google AI. The suggestion also changes as individuals type, which would help a user find the most appropriate response. This functionality looks a lot like auto-complete, but with suggestions made by AI, they could be more relevant to each conversation.
In addition to the quotes, Google Chat is adding rich text formatting for all users, another feature that had rolled out to Workspace customerspreviously. This will allow users to highlight essential points using bold or italic styling, create structured lists, and employ font colors and strike-through text for emphasis. Rich text formatting enhances readability and makes key information stand out by making messages visually appealing and scannable.
These features were already available on other work chat services like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Discord, so it feels like Google is just catching up. However, Google adding AI help with Smart Reply for every user may give them an edge.
