Google is waving goodbye to Currents, its social network for enterprises, and focusing on enhancing Google Chat with new community features. As Currents reaches the end of its life on July 5, 2023, Google is putting its efforts into creating a seamless and modern experience for Google Workspace customers to build a sense of belonging and collaboration within hybrid teams.
The company has already facilitated the migration of Currents data to spaces in Google Chat, and Workspace administrators can export Currents data using Takeout until August 8, 2023. With the termination of Currents, Google is ramping up its investment in new features for Google Chat, aiming to provide teams with a connected and engaging communication experience.
Google Chat is introducing new ways for organizations to share information across the enterprise. These new features offer admin controls to limit permissions for posting in a space while allowing all members to read and react. This ensures that important updates stay visible and relevant. Later this year, Google plans to simplify membership management by integrating Google Groups with spaces in Chat, enable post-level metrics for announcements, and provide tools for Workspace administrators to manage spaces across their domain.
In-line threaded conversations, custom emojis, and the ability to discover and join communities with up to 8,000 members are some of the new features that have already been rolled out. Google is working on scaling this further later this year. As communities grow, it’s crucial to provide tools for content moderation and data management. Last year, Google introduced space managers and data loss prevention (DLP) for Chat, aiming to continue enhancing community health and data security.
Google’s partner community has also contributed to the power of Chat by integrating essential third-party apps such as Jira, GitHub, Asana, PagerDuty, Zendesk, and Salesforce. Many organizations have built custom workflow apps using low-code and no-code tools, and this number is expected to grow with the general availability (GA) releases of the Chat API and AppSheet’s Chat app building capabilities later this year.
The transition from Currents to spaces in Google Chat aims to provide organizations with a modern, enterprise-grade experience that reflects how the world is working today. Google Workspace customers use Google Chat to communicate about projects, share organizational updates, and build community. As hybrid work continues to evolve, Google is committed to making Google Chat the best option for Workspace customers seeking to foster community and culture within their teams.
Workspace administrators and end users are encouraged to review the Change Management Guide, use Takeout to explore their organization’s Currents data before August 8, 2023, and learn more about getting started with spaces in Google Chat.
Spaces in Google Chat are available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts.
