Developer Preview: You can now use the search method of the Google Chat API to manage and search for spaces that the calling user is a member of without administrator privileges. This feature is available as part of the Developer Preview Program.

Generally Available: You can now quote messages from other spaces, or quote message replies from different threads in the same space. To do this, set the quoteType (REST) or quote_type (gRPC) field to FORWARD in QuotedMessageMetadata when creating a message.

For more information, see Quote a message.

Developer Preview: Subscriptions to user read state updates in Google Chat are now available as part of the Developer Preview Program.

Google Chat apps can now subscribe to user read state updates in Google Chat using the Google Workspace Events API. The following event types are supported:

• google.workspace.chat.spaceReadState.v1.updated: A user's space read state is updated.
• google.workspace.chat.threadReadState.v1.updated: A user's thread read state is updated.
• google.workspace.chat.spaceReadState.v1.batchUpdated: Multiple space read states are updated for the subscribed user.
• google.workspace.chat.threadReadState.v1.batchUpdated: Multiple thread read states are updated for the subscribed user.

This feature requires the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.users.readstate or https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.users.readstate.readonly authorization scope.

To learn more, see Subscribe to Google Chat events.

Developer Preview: Available as part of the Developer Preview Program, which grants early access to certain features.

You can now use the search method on the Message resource to search for messages that the authenticated user has access to.

For details, see Search messages.

Generally Available: Chat apps using app authentication can now send a forced notification when sending a message or send a message silently by setting the createMessageNotificationOptions field in the CreateMessage request. You can use these options to notify users:

• Forced notifications: Overrides recipient notification settings and Do Not Disturb (DND) status to ensure the message is delivered as a push notification.
• Silent messages: Suppresses push notifications and prevents the message from bolding or bumping the space in the recipient's list.

For more information, see Send forced notifications or silent messages.

Chat MCP

Developer Preview: Available as part of the Developer Preview Program, which grants early access to certain features.

The Google Chat Model Context Protocol (MCP) server now supports two new tools: search_messages and send_message. These tools allow AI agents to search for messages across conversations and send messages behalf of the user.

To get started with the new tools, see the Set up the Chat MCP server guide or view the full list of tools in the Chat MCP tool reference.

Developer Preview Developer Preview Program

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Google Chat is now available in developer preview. MCP is an open protocol that enables seamless integration between AI applications and your Chat conversations. By configuring the Chat MCP server, you enable AI agents to securely list messages and take actions, such as sending messages in your spaces.

For example, you can ask your AI agent: "What's the latest update in the 'Project X' space?"

To get started with the Chat MCP server, see the following documentation:

• Set up the Chat MCP server
• Chat MCP tool reference

To find more available MCP servers, see Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers in Google Workspace.

Generally Available: Chat apps can find existing group conversations with specific members using the FindGroupChats method. For more information, see Find a group chat.

Developer Preview: You can now configure and respond to message actions in Google Chat. Message actions let users invoke your Chat app from the message context menu. This feature is available for both Google Chat apps and Google Workspace Add-ons that extend Google Chat through the Developer Preview Program.

Generally Available: Generally available - You can now call the Chat API to create and manage custom sections and organize conversations into a personalized view.

For more information, see the following guides:

• Create a custom section
• Delete a custom section
• List custom sections
• Update a custom section
• Position a custom section
• List custom section items
• Move a custom section item

Generally available: The following Chat API methods support app authentication with administrator approval:

• Get a message
• List messages
• Get a space event
• List space events

Additionally, Chat apps can now call the following methods in the Google Workspace Events API using app authentication with administrator approval:

• Subscribe to Chat space events
• Update or renew a subscription
• Reactivate a subscription

Generally available: Chat apps can now format text with block quotes. For details, see Format your messages.

Developer Preview: Chat apps can now create messages containing cards on behalf of users with user authentication. Additionally, apps can asynchronously update the cards in these messages without requiring user interaction. For more information, see Create and update interactive cards.

Generally Available: When sending a message with app authentication, Google Chat API now supports mentioning users who haven't joined a Chat space or are members of a space that is in import mode. Previously, only sending a message with user authentication was supported. To learn how, see Mention users in a text message.

Developer Preview: You can now build Google Chat apps as Google Workspace add-ons that use Cloud Pub/Sub to receive messages. This architecture is useful if your Chat app is behind a firewall. For details, see Build a Chat app that uses Pub/Sub.

Generally Available: You can now convert your interactive event-driven Chat apps to Google Workspace Add-ons that extends Chat.

By converting, your Google Chat app can use the Google Workspace Add-ons framework, opening up new possibilities for integration and features within Google Chat and across Google Workspace. For example, instead of two distributions — one Google Chat app and one Google Workspace add-on — you can distribute a single Google Workspace add-on through Google Workspace Marketplace that extends Chat apps alongside other Google Workspace host applications, like Gmail, Calendar, and Docs.

To learn more, see Convert an interactive Google Chat app to a Google Workspace add-on.

The Google Chat platform samples gallery now lets you find samples by products, language, and sample type. The gallery also features the following new samples for building Chat apps:

• Agent2Agent agents
• ADK AI agents
• Dialogflow ES
• Dialogflow CX

Developer Preview: You can now dynamically populate drop-down menus in Google Chat apps with data from Google Workspace or external data sources, with an autocomplete functionality. To learn more, see Add interactive UI elements to cards.

Developer Preview: You can now call the Chat API to create and manage custom sections and organize conversations in a personalized view:

• Create section (RPC, REST)
• Delete section (RPC, REST)
• List sections (RPC, REST)
• Update section (RPC, REST)
• Position section (RPC, REST)
• List section items (RPC, REST)
• Move section items (RPC, REST)

To learn more, see Section (RPC, REST) and SectionItem (RPC, REST) in the Chat API documentation.

Generally available: The Chat API now supports reading rich links to Gmail threads in Chat messages that appear as chips. To learn more, see RichLinkType in the Chat API reference documentation.

Developer Preview: Chat apps can find existing group conversations with specific members using FindGroupChats.

Generally available: When sending private messages, Chat apps can now include interactive accessory widgets.

Feature

Generally available: We're enhancing membership roles in Chat spaces by introducing a new membership role type. In the Chat UI, existing space managers are now owners and a new manager role is added.

Previously, there were three membership role types in Chat API. MEMBERSHIP_ROLE_UNSPECIFIED, which meant a user wasn't a member but could be invited. ROLE_MEMBER, which meant a user was a member of the space. And ROLE_MANAGER, which meant a user was a space manager.

Now, in the Chat UI, ROLE_MANAGER users are called owners; this is a cosmetic change so permissions and the API enum remain the same. To help space owners administer spaces, we're introducing ROLE_ASSISTANT_MANAGER which is called manager in the UI. Possible membership roles include:

• MEMBERSHIP_ROLE_UNSPECIFIED: Default value. For users: they aren't a member of the space, but can be invited. For Google Groups: they're always assigned this role.
• ROLE_MEMBER: A member of the space. In the Chat UI, this role is called Member. Members have basic permissions, like reading messages in a space. Managers and Owners can grant them additional permissions, like adding or removing members, editing space details, and turning history on and off.
• ROLE_ASSISTANT_MANAGER: A space manager. In the Chat UI, this role is called Manager. By default, managers have permission to make other members managers, delete messages, and change space permissions.
• ROLE_MANAGER: A space owner. In the Chat UI, this role is called Owner. Owners have the broadest set of permissions, including permission to make other members owners or delete the space.

To learn more, see Update a user's membership in a Google Chat space and MembershipRole in the Chat API reference documentation.

Generally available: You can now format text with Markdown, including lists and code blocks, in your Chat apps.

Developer Preview: The following Chat API methods support app authentication with administrator approval when called with chat.app.* authorization scopes:

• Get a Chat space event.
• List Chat space events.

Additionally, Chat apps can now call the following methods in the Google Workspace Events API using app authentication with administrator approval with chat.app.* authorization scopes:

• Subscribe to Chat space events
• Update or renew a subscription
• Reactivate a subscription

Generally available: Increased per-space quota limits for writing messages and reactions with the Chat API:

• When importing data to Google Chat, the per-space quota limit for writing messages with spaces.messages.create increases from 60 to 600 per minute.
• When writing reactions with spaces.messages.reactions.create, the per-space quota limit increases from 60 to 300 per minute.

To learn more, see the Chat API's per-space quotas.

Generally available: You can now design your Chat app to include a carousel, which is a layout that rotates and displays a list of cards in a slideshow format, with buttons navigating to the previous or next carousel card. For details, see Carousel.

Developer Preview: The following Chat API methods support app authentication with administrator approval:

• Get a message as a Chat app with administrator approval using chat.app.messages.readonly scope.
• List messages with a Chat app with administrator approval using chat.app.messages.readonly scope.

Generally available: You can now call the Chat API to create messages that quote other messages, or to update messages to remove quotes. To learn more, see Quote a message.

Generally Available: The following Chat API methods support app authentication using a new type of authentication scope, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.*:

• Create a named space as a Chat app with https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.spaces or https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.spaces.create.
• Update a space as a Chat app with https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.spaces.
• Delete a named space as a Chat app with https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.delete.
• Get details about a space as a Chat app with https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.spaces.
• Invite or add a user to a space as a Chat app with https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.memberships.
• Update a membership as a Chat app with https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.memberships.
• Remove a member from a space with https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.memberships.

To learn more, see Types of required authentication and Authenticate as a Chat app.

Feature

Generally Available: Chat apps can now create (RPC, REST), update (RPC, REST), and get details about (RPC, REST) Chat space permission settings by calling the corresponding method in Chat API using app authentication with the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.spaces or https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.spaces.create authentication scope, including creating announcement spaces.

You can now read the metadata for Meet, Huddle, and Calendar chips using message annotations. Use the RichLinkMetadata object to read information about the chip.