Google Chat will now enable messaging from Microsoft Teams and Slack with its new interoperability support. The cross-platform messaging feature was first announced by the tech giant at the Google Cloud Next 2023 event, but until now the feature was only available in beta to a limited number of users. With the new update, all paid Google Workspace subscribers will be able to send messages to Teams and Slack users. Namely, users and organizations will have to use the Mio app to access the functionality.

The new feature was announced via an update to Google Workspace. The company said: “The interoperability will enable organizations using Google Chat and other messaging platforms within their domain to provide a more seamless experience to their users.” This means that users will only be able to use this feature to send messages to people within their own organization. This could be useful for messaging co-workers in different teams who use a separate app to communicate.

However, there is a caveat. Cross-platform messaging is not built into Google Chat. So, users will need to download and install the Mio app to create interoperability. This will be the tricky part as organizations will need to purchase an additional license to use the feature. Despite the extra steps, this can be a useful feature for large organizations that don’t exclusively use one communication platform for all teams.

The company has been testing the cross-platform messaging feature between Google Chat, Microsoft Teams and Slack for the past year and its availability has been limited to some users. Google previously announced at this year’s Cloud Next event that the feature would be rolled out to all paying users of Workspace, and as of last week, the feature is being rolled out globally.

Separately, Slack has released its artificial intelligence (AI) features to all paying users globally. Now, users with a paid subscription to the platform can purchase an add-on to activate features such as resume, search, and conversation summaries. The company also plans to add a note-taking summary generation feature for its Huddle voice and video calling feature.