Apparently, Google has a major Gmail redesign in progress that could allow you to collaborate with colleagues, work on Google Docs, and talk about Google Meet all without leaving Gmail. Leaked images of the redesign were detected on the Google website for the Google Cloud Next ’20: OnAir event by Twitter user Tahin Rahman (via Android Police)
In the redesign, there are now tabs for Mail, Chat, Rooms and Meetings. The Chat tab seeks to bring you into your conversations with people, while the Rooms appear to be spaces for topic-based conversations, similar to Slack’s channels. The Meet tab shows your upcoming Google Meet meetings and suggestions on who you can contact. (The Meet tab may sound familiar: Google already announced in June that it would be coming to the Gmail iOS and Android apps.)
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Image: Tahin Rahman
Other slides posted by Rahman show that you will be able to put in a conversation and a Google document at the same time while in Gmail, allowing you to collaborate on the document and discuss it in real time. Apparently, you’ll even be able to have a Google Meet video chat window in image-in-image mode, as well as letting you discuss projects in a call while looking at the chat and document in front of you:
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Image: Tahin Rahman
In January, it was reported that Google was aiming to unify its messaging apps and work tools into a single mobile app, and it seems possible that these leaked slides will show the fruits of that work. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company has quickly beefed up its collaboration tools, including renaming Hangouts Meet to Google Meet, adding new features to Meet (and making it free for everyone), and converting Hangouts Chat to Business users to Google Chat.
