Google is not abandoning consumer users of the chat application, but it will migrate them to the enterprise-focused Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet sometime next year.
The classic version of Google Hangouts is on the way out, and the company will migrate consumers to a reworked version of the chat service next year.
The old Hangouts application is getting phased out in favor of Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, two products launched in March 2017 for business customers through Google’s G-Suite platform.
On Sunday, Google told PCMag that Chat and Meet will eventually be available for consumers, too. When the migration will exactly occur isn’t clear, but it looks like no one will be able to opt out.
“We are fully committed to supporting classic Hangouts users until everyone is successfully migrated to Chat and Meet,” the company said in an email, without elaborating.
