Telegram

29.05.25. 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. Telegram gets automatic translation on Samsung phones



Samsung is expanding support for its real-time conversation translation feature, Live Translate, to nine third-party apps, including the Telegram messenger. Live Translate, a Google Translate alternative, offers not only two-way translation and voice-over, but also voice translation of real phone conversations. Now, Samsung is expanding this feature to popular messaging apps in many countries, including KakaoTalk, Line, WeChat, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Google Meet, and others. Samsung first introduced Live Translate with the One UI 6.1 update on the S24 series smartphones as part of its Galaxy AI suite of AI features: the feature translates regular phone conversations.


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.


2020. Telegram launches video calls in its iOS app



Telegram has released an update to version 6.3 for its Android and iOS apps. Among other features, the iOS app now features video calls. Currently, these features are in test mode. Telegram announced plans to launch video calls in April 2020 amid the increased popularity of video conferencing services due to self-isolation. The team promised to add the feature by the end of the year.


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.


2014. Telegram attracts business users



Mobile messaging apps have been rapidly proliferating lately, luring users away from social networks. The same will soon happen in the business sector – corporate Viber apps will replace corporate Facebooks. Telegram (created by VKontakte founder Pavel Durov) initially focused on privacy and security, which is likely why it was the first to be adopted by business users. In a recent interview, Pavel boasted that more and more workgroups are using Telegram for collaboration instead of email. He believes that, in addition to encryption, business users appreciate Telegram's ability to sync messages and files between the mobile and desktop versions, display message statuses (read or not), and organize large group chats.