Google’s Hangouts Chat is looking more social as it lets users react to messages with a variety of emoji reactions.

Following Facebook

More than two years after Facebook launched their expanded options for the standard set of emoji reactions for posts, Google Hangouts Chat is doing something similar.

You can use all the traditional favourites: smileys, applause, thumbs up, party symbols and more. You can save your peaches and aubergines for another forum.

To react with emojis in Hangouts Chat, mouse over a message and click the ‘Add reaction’ icon that appears. If you’re on mobile, press and hold the desired message to bring up the “Add reaction” option.

Roll out your reactions

It’s a little surprising that Hangouts Chat is only getting these reaction shortcuts now. In Google’s own words, ‘Communication styles at work are evolving, and expressive communication modes are oftentimes preferred over simple text.’

They already rolled out AI-driven one-tap reply suggestions for SMS, which seemed to be a step further. Maybe emoji reactions on Hangouts Chat is just back-filling the gaps they’ve left by moving fast in other directions.

The emoji rollout is happening now. If you can’t react yet, you will be able to soon.

Are emojis a valuable shortcut for professional communications, or are they only really right in more casual contexts?

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