Generally Available: The Google Chat API endpoints targeting message pins are now Generally Available (GA) and are no longer restricted to the Developer Preview Program. Developers can use the Chat API to programmatically pin messages, unpin messages, and list all pinned messages within a Google Chat space.

For more details, see Pin or unpin messages in Google Chat spaces and the REST reference documentation:

• spaces.messagePins.create
• spaces.messagePins.delete
• spaces.messagePins.list

Developer Preview: The Google Chat Model Context Protocol (MCP) server now supports three new tools: mark_as_read, mark_as_unread, and list_memberships. These tools enable AI agents to update the read state of a space or thread and list memberships on the user's behalf. This feature is available as part of the Developer Preview Program.

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: You can now add citations and footer sources to Google Chat text messages. This feature is available as part of the Developer Preview Program.

You can provide sources in two ways:

• Inline citations: Interactive cards that appear when users hold the pointer over specific parts of your message text.
• Footer sources: A list of sources displayed at the bottom of the message as footer links.

Citations are supported when the message's markupSyntax is set to MARKUP_SYNTAX_MARKDOWN and when messages are created asynchronously using the Google Chat API.

For more information, see Add citations to a text message.

Generally Available: 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.

Generally Available: You can now format Google Chat messages using standard Markdown syntax. By specifying the markupSyntax field as MARKUP_SYNTAX_MARKDOWN when creating a message using the Chat API, the body text is parsed using standard Markdown formatting.

For more information, see Format your messages.

Generally Available: You can now use the spaces.search method of the Chat API to manage and search for spaces that the calling user is a member of without administrator privileges.

For more information, see Search for spaces.

Generally Available: You can now use the search method on the Message Resource of the Chat API (REST, RPC) to search for messages that the authenticated user has access to.

For more information, see Search messages.

Generally Available: You no longer need to manually configure a Google Chat app in the Google Cloud console for integrations that only use the Chat API to read data (for example, GetSpace, ListMessages) on behalf of a user using OAuth. For read-only actions, you only need to enable the API and create an OAuth client.

For more information, see Configure the Google Chat API.

Generally Available: Subscriptions to user read state updates in Google Chat are now generally available.

You can use the Google Workspace Events API to subscribe to user read state updates in Google Chat. 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.

Generally Available: You can now configure separate, granular access permissions for discovering and joining a space in the Google Chat API. To specify who can discover or join a space, include the AccessSettings object in the spaces resource, and use the accessPermissionSettings field to specify granular permissions.

For more information, see the Target audience for the Spaces resource.

Learn more in this Google Workspace Updates blog post: New discoverable space setting in Google Chat.

Generally Available: You can now use the Google Chat API to read and update a user's availability in Google Chat. The following methods are supported on the users.availability resource:

• get: Gets a user's availability, including their presence and custom status.
• patch: Updates a user's custom status (with optional emoji and expiration time).
• markAsActive: Sets a user's presence state to active.
• markAsAway: Sets a user's presence state to away.
• markAsDoNotDisturb: Sets a user's presence state to do not disturb.

Additionally, Google Chat apps can subscribe to user availability updates using the Google Workspace Events API. The google.workspace.chat.availability.v1.updated event type is supported.

For more information, see Manage user availability for Chat apps.

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: You can now dynamically populate dropdown menus in Google Chat apps from Google Workspace or external data sources, with an autocomplete functionality. To learn how, see Design interactive cards and dialogs.

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.