Топ 10: Мессенджеры для бизнеса

2026. Elon Musk launches his own messenger, XChat



Remember the good old days when Elon Musk was all about electric cars and spaceships? Now he wants to be involved in every global thing. His new messenger XChat will compete with WhatsApp and Telegram. Currently, it only works on iOS and the web. The messenger emphasizes user privacy and promises end-to-end encryption, zero tracking, no ads, and a host of privacy tools for messages, including the ability to hide photos from recipients after sending. However, all these settings are deeply hidden, and most people will likely never use them.


2026. Slack gives more skills to its AI agent



Salesforce has unveiled a major update to Slack, adding over 30 new features. A key focus was on the development of Slackbot, which has gained significantly broader capabilities as an AI agent. Users can now define specific action scenarios for Slackbot that can be used in various work situations. In addition to the built-in skills library, users can create their own skills. For example, with the command "create a budget," Slackbot can collect data from work chats, integrated services, and internal sources, generate an action plan, and even automatically schedule meetings with relevant employees. Other new features include automatic meeting transcription and the creation of meeting summaries with task definitions for participants.


2025. WhatsApp implemented compatibility with other messaging apps in Europe



In 2022 the EU adopted the so-called Digital Markets Act, designed to limit the influence of major market players, including WhatsApp. In the context of the messenger's operation, its developers are required to be compatible with third-party services. Initially, these will be two European messengers: BirdyChat and Haiket. Both are designed for an EU audience, and now, thanks to new legislation, they will have seamless integration with WhatsApp. This means that all messages from one app will flow into the other. WhatsApp stipulated that the integration requires its "partners" to have end-to-end encryption and it does - users' messages are not stored on the company's servers, and therefore correspondence cannot be disclosed without access to the recipients' devices.

2025. Telegram to integrate chatbot Grok



Pavel Durov and Elon Musk have agreed to integrate the intelligent chatbot Grok into the Telegram messenger. Telegram will receive $300 million in exchange for this agreement, along with half the revenue from paid subscriptions to Grok made through the messenger. The partnership is for a one-year term. According to Durov's presentation, Grok will offer the following features: sticker and avatar generation, group moderation, fact-checking, smart text editing, document digests, chat transcripts, link insertion, agent functions for incoming messages, intelligent search, and more.


2024. Microsoft’s Copilot is now on Telegram



Microsoft’s Copilot, a marvel of generative AI technology, has found its way onto Telegram, where it now lounges comfortably as a beta chatbot, pretending to be your well-informed but mildly eccentric friend. You can summon it by searching for @CopilotOfficialBot and after the obligatory sharing of your phone number (it’s only polite, after all), you’ll be able to ask it anything, from what movie to watch on a rainy Tuesday to who’s winning the latest sporting event. It’s free, available on both mobile and desktop and hints at Microsoft’s grander plans to infiltrate every corner of our digital lives with Copilot—starting with its appearances in Microsoft 365, Teams and even Copilot+ PCs. Telegram’s just another stop on the journey to AI world domination.


2023. WhatsApp launched channels



WhatsApp announced the launch of channels in 150 countries. Channel creators can post text, photos, videos, polls, and stickers in channels. Subscribers' phone numbers are hidden from other users and the administrator. The administrator's details are also not visible. Following testing, WhatsApp added an automatic filter to the channel catalog that takes into account the user's country. Channel subscribers, in turn, can now react to posts, and administrators can edit them for 30 days.


2021. Google Business Messages - Chat with customers from Google Search and Maps



Lately, you've been seeing a chat button more and more often in Google search results and on Google Maps in company profiles. How do they do it? It's all thanks to the Google Business Messages tool, which recently became available in the Google My Business service. It's very simple: you enable messaging for your company profile and receive notifications in the Google My Business mobile app when a client contacts you. Of course, this option is sufficient for small businesses. For larger companies, there are various chat services integrated with Google Business Messages. For example, Respond.io. There, Google chat is just one of the channels (along with instant messengers and social networks), messages from which are entered into a single system and distributed among managers. Moreover, such services allow you to create bots for automatic (quick) responses to recurring customer questions.


2020. Telegram added folders for chats and channels



Telegram now allows to group chats and channels into folders. Users can set up their own folders or use the default settings. For example, folders can be used to separate work and family chats. Users can also include or exclude all chats of a certain type, such as "Channels" or "Unread." This feature is activated when the list of conversations becomes too long, or it can be enabled with a special command: it is activated by clicking the link tg://settings/folders. An unlimited number of chats can be pinned to each folder.


2016. Viber launches public accounts for business



Viber has added the ability to create public accounts for companies and brands. Until now, Viber used public chats to communicate between businesses and clients. A company representative could write messages, but subscribers could only read them, or the company and client had to add each other as contacts. A business account will allow for two-way communication with subscribers. Furthermore, bots can be connected to these chats, and they can be integrated with your CRM system to view communication history in the client's profile. Currently, business accounts are only available upon request (like public chats), but they are completely free.


2014. Japanese internet giant Rakuten has acquired Viber.



Japanese company Rakuten acquired Viber, perhaps Skype's current main competitor, for $900 million. This immediately brought to mind the recent acquisition of fring by the American company Genband, which subsequently transformed fring into a service provider for telecom providers. However, in this case, there's no need to worry about Viber. Rakuten has no plans to shut down or redesign Viber to suit their needs. They'll simply invest in it in the hopes of beating Skype and somehow recouping their investment (for example, through the ViberOut IP telephony service). Rakuten has a diversified business investing in internet startups. For example, they own the Kobo e-book platform and are co-owners of Pinterest and other internet projects. Viber is a cross-platform messenger that supports free voice and, in some cases, video calling. Currently, the service has approximately 300 million users.