Google shutting down yet another chat service

The so-called “Google graveyard” is getting bigger and bigger every year as the Mountain View company continues to shut down many of the services that didn’t find enough of an audience.

The latest Google victim is the chat feature in Google Business Profile, which will be discontinued and completely removed in just a few months. Specifically designed for businesses, this feature will stop working on July 15, 2024.

Although customers will still be able to find and contact businesses through Google Search and Maps, they will no longer be able to start new chat conversations with a business from Google.

Google says that the chat feature will be completely removed in Google Business Profile on July 31, 2024. The search giant advises businesses relying on this specific feature to consider alternative chat channels to continue conversations with their customers.

Businesses interested in keeping records of past Business Profile chats can download it through Google Takeout. Keep in mind though that these will only be available for download until August 30, 2024.

As far as customers go, those in existing chat conversations will be notified about the deprecation of the feature beginning July 15, 2024. All notifications will be shown in existing chat conversations until July 31, 2024, when this feature will no longer be supported.