Mar 11, 2017 11:45 AM EST By Johanna Michaels, UniversityHerald Reporter

Google Hangouts is not dead. Despite the previous word that the Mountain View company was shutting down the third-party app service, the application will instead get a major overhaul and live on. This means that people who have used Google Hangout can continue to hold their meetings and messaging notifications moving forward.

Among the improvements for Google Hangout will include seeing it split into two separate apps. This will be the Meet and Chat segments with the former offering video meeting capabilities with the latter one focused on group chatting, Phone Arena reported.

The Meet app for Google Hangouts will support up to 30-person video conferences with users not required to sign up or use additional software. All folks will have to do is click on the shared link and they can automatically join in the meeting. Aside from links, people can also join in from set meetings done via Calendar since it will be integrated with G Suite.

The Chat app should be something similar to what users enjoy now on Google Hangout. The virtual room will include bots, Google App script support and integration with other third-party apps. The Meet portion of the Google Hangouts is already available. It will be rolled out in stages for G Suite users in the coming weeks. Users who wish to try out the revamped app can do so via the Early Adopter Program.

The recent development tied up with Google Chat follows the announcement of the AI-powered chat platforms Allo and Duo. For those who missed it, Allo is a mobile-only messaging app which was rebooted by Google, Engadget reported. It makes use of the company’s biggest strengths which would make it stand out. It shows up in the app via the Google Assistant, a conversational chatbot that provides people contextual info based on chat history.

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