Google has announced a major overhaul for Gmail that will expand the service beyond emails and become a productivity hub for workplace.
The new design shows four tabs at the bottom of a user's screen: Mail, Chat, Meet for video calling, and Rooms, CNET reported on Wednesday.
Rooms is similar to ‘Slack rooms' which lets people on the same team at work collaborate in real time.
"In Google's version, people can chat, swap files and edit Google Docs without switching tabs," the report mentioned.
"We’re also enhancing the collaboration features in Chat rooms by adding shared files and tasks, making rooms an even better solution for longer-term projects. With quick access to shared chat, important documents, and to-dos in one place, it’s easier for everyone in a group to stay on the same page. Plus, Chat lets you create rooms that include people outside your company, like contractors or consultants, so your group can be not only cross-functional but also cross-organizational."
"There's the task of bringing them together, and the task of making them greater than the sum of their parts," Javier Soltero, head of Google's GSuite division for productivity apps, was quoted as saying.
Google Meet usage is surging. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said recently that it was adding 3 million new users a day during the pandemic and has 100 million meeting participants a day.
The video meet for Android has surpassed over 10 crore downloads globally on Google Play Store.
Gmail currently has more than 1 billion users.
Gmail over the last couple of months has added a couple of new features to its Gmail app for iOS, including support for Siri shortcuts when sending emails, and adding attachments to emails from the iOS files app.