Google will close Hangouts chat application in 2020

Google is said to be planning to discontinue its Hangouts chat application in 2020, although the business version appears to continue to exist. Google probably wants to focus on developing its other chat apps; Duo and Allo.

When exactly Google wants to stop Hangouts is not clear, because the internet giant has not made the plans public itself. A source from 9To5Google said it was “sometime in 2020”. However, it already seems that the chat application is not being developed further, so the discontinuation of support does not come as a surprise.

However, a business version of Hangouts will continue to exist, which has now been integrated into G Suite. This concerns Hangouts Chat, which has similar functionality to the popular Slack. There is also Hangouts Meet, where video calling is the most important feature. Allo and Duo remain for consumers, although the former does not seem to be going very well either; Google recently announced that it was pausing development of Allo.