Google’s Gmail redesign points to Slack, Microsoft Teams

Google announced a major redesign for Gmail on Wednesday, aiming to expand the app beyond an email service and into a hub for planning projects and chatting with coworkers. The update brings Gmail into more direct competition with other productivity apps from rivals like Slack and Microsoft, which has a product called Teams.

The idea is to bring separate Google services, like Google Docs, Drive and Calendar, to one place. The new design shows four tabs at the bottom of a user’s screen: Mail, Chat, Meet for video calls, and Rooms.

The newest feature, Rooms, is similar to Slack rooms, allowing people on the same team at work to collaborate in real time. In the Google version, people can chat, exchange files, and edit Google Docs without changing tabs.

“There is a task to put them together and a task to make them larger than the sum of their parts,” Javier Soltero, head of Google’s GSuite division for productivity apps, said in an interview on Wednesday.

The redesign occurs as companies around the world shift to remote work in the face of coronavirus pandemic. Companies have closed their offices and relied on productivity software to keep their workers connected.

Social distancing has also been a boon for Google products. In April, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the use of Meet had increased. He said the service was adding 3 million new users a day during the pandemic, up from 2 million new users a day a few weeks earlier. Pichai said the service has 100 million meeting participants a day. Google also added a Meet button to Gmail in April, and the redesign makes the integration even more prominent.

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However, Google critics may be wary that the search giant uses the scale of its platforms to push people to its other products, where competitors don’t have as much of an advantage. For example, Gmail, with over a billion users, puts Meet front and center, rather than a rival like Zoom. In a report published in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Google was also accused of favoring YouTube in search results over other video services. The company is under antitrust scrutiny by federal and state officials investigating the company’s market dominance.

On Wednesday, Soltero said Google has a long history of product integrations, and the Gmail redesign is about making those crossovers a more consistent experience.

The updated app also has other features, such as postponing notifications, assigning tasks, and applying a “do not disturb” filter. Google is testing the redesign app with some companies now before it launches the service more widely next month.