By Google Chat now looks more like Slack. And Teams. And everything else. | Image: Google
Google is making some big changes to Google Chat, its answer to Slack and Microsoft Teams. The messaging app — aka The Product Formerly Known As Hangouts — is getting a new design, some features that will feel distinctly familiar to Slack and Teams users, and a lot of Google’s new Duet AI collaboration tools. Most of the new features are rolling out later this year and early next, but they add up to a much more useful and competitive Chat platform.
Duet is the flagship new feature and potentially a reason for a lot of Workspace users to start using Chat. You can use Duet to search and ask questions about all your stuff in Drive and Gmail and summarize both documents and conversations. You’ll also be able to use AI-powered autocorrect in…