February 13, 2019
In 2017, Google announced Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet for team communication. Later this year, Google will transition classic Hangouts to Chat and Meet on the UMICH domain. As a first step, some changes are coming on April 16, 2019.
Key dates to note:
- Starting April 16, 2019 – Chat will become available to U-M Google accounts on the web and via mobile apps. You can continue using classic Hangouts in Gmail, mobile, web, and the Chrome extension. See Chat and classic Hangout interoperability.
- Between April and September 2019 – Features from classic Hangouts will come to Chat, such as:
- Integration with Gmail
- Chatting with external users
- An improved video calling experience
- Making calls with Google Voice
- October 2019 – Google will start retiring classic Hangouts. To prepare for the transition from classic Hangouts to Chat, review Google’s documentation.
We will keep you updated as new features are brought to Chat.