At the 2021 Google I/O, Google announced that Rooms in Google Chat will be rebranded “Spaces” and will get a number of enhancements.
Spaces appears to be a viable alternative to Slack (which is in the process of being acquired by Salesforce) and Microsoft Teams.
If your company uses Google Workspace, you can currently create Rooms by going to https://chat.google.com and then adding a Room. Any Rooms that you create now will automatically evolve into Spaces at some point during the summer of 2021.
Spaces will also be accessible as a button in the left sidebar of both consumer and business Gmail.
Javier Soltero, Vice President and General Manager, Google Workspace wrote, “Powered by new features like in-line topic threading, presence indicators, custom statuses, expressive reactions, and a collapsible view, Spaces will seamlessly integrate with files and tasks, becoming a new home in Google Workspace for getting more done—together.”