Google has started putting a thread of its own into Google Messages, an Official chat that sends you news about new app features and RCS. I went looking for it on my phone three times this week and it has not turned up yet, though the version other people are getting is a lot less of a chat than the one Google was testing over the summer.
If you have not run into it, the invitation arrives as a popup asking whether you want to join the Official chat for feature updates. Say yes and Google becomes one of the conversations in your list, sitting alongside the people you actually text.
The reply box is switched off, and the thread says so outright along the bottom of the screen, where a line reads that the sender has turned off replies. The only way to answer is by tapping a canned quick reply, which in the shared screenshot meant choosing between Show me how and I want more features.
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So the conversation runs in one direction, which makes calling it a chat a little generous.
The Official chat sells you RCS in carousel cards, then tells you the sender has turned off replies. | Image by iiDez via Reddit
That is a real change from what we saw when the feature was still in testing, since accepting the card back then gave you an RCS thread with a chatbot you could actually ask things. The whole selling point at that stage was that it was not a broadcast channel, and there was an unsubscribe option waiting for whenever you had had enough.
Google has not announced any of this, so the build people are seeing now may not be final. It also appears to be rolling out server-side rather than through an app update, which means sitting on an older version will not keep it away from you.
How do you feel about Google putting its own chat in your message list?
2 Votes
Why a one-way thread in your inbox feels different
A messaging app is a space you built yourself, and every thread in it belongs to someone you chose to talk to. That is not true of a feed, a store page or the notification shade, which is why a company thread in that list reads as more of an intrusion than a banner ever would.
The one comment on our coverage of the Official chat reaching real users got there faster than I did. Reader ErikOiseaux, an Arena Master on our forums, said it would be atrociously annoying if his text app did that to him.
He went further and explained that developer-broadcast threads and AI integrations inside chat apps are the exact reason he walked away from other messengers, and that the only chats he wants are the ones he started himself. His closing line to developers was to go find their own friends.
It is one comment, so I am not going to pretend it speaks for everybody. Still, nobody has turned up to argue the other side yet, and our own author had already reached the same place on his own.
WhatsApp and Telegram both run announcement channels, so Google is not inventing anything here. The difference is where that content sits.
WhatsApp keeps channels in a separate Updates tab, and following one is openly a subscription to a one-way broadcast where you receive rather than reply. You can unfollow and you can mute, though you cannot hide the Updates tab itself.
Telegram treats channels the same way. Owners can send silent posts that arrive without a sound, and the platform reports back how many people joined, left or muted, which tells you that leaving is expected behavior rather than something going wrong.
Both of them ended up keeping company broadcasts out of the thread list, mostly after years of complaints. Google is starting where those two finished, which is a strange direction to walk in.
What Google should do before this goes wide
The timing is also interesting, because this comes after a rough stretch for the app. We have had group chats misbehaving and a bug that exposed message content, and asking for more room in the inbox while that is still fresh is a tough sell.
None of this is hard to fix, though. A one-time card, a thread clearly labeled as an announcement channel, muted by default and a visible toggle in Settings would cover the whole objection.
The unsubscribe option existed in the beta, so the plumbing is likely already built. What is missing is Google saying so out loud, and that is the cheapest part of the entire thing.
I would take the digest, just not in that list
I use Google Messages constantly and the Official chat still has not appeared for me, which is how server-side rollouts tend to go. I am assuming it turns up eventually, and I will probably accept it once just to see what actually shows up in there.
For what it is worth, I would not mind a feature digest from Google at all. I would mind it sitting between my mom and my group chat, and I would mind it a lot more if switching it off meant hunting through a support page to find the setting.
Johanna Romero is a Senior News Writer at PhoneArena, covering mobile technology news across Android, iOS, wearables, and the Google ecosystem she knows best. Drawing on 15 years in IT and tech support from 2007 to 2022, she brings a user-friendly eye for the practical features and lesser-known tricks readers care about. Google named her an official #TeamPixel member in 2022, and she also reviews the latest devices on her YouTube channel, JoJo the Techie.
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