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Google's been working on its own Slack competitor for a while now, having first mentioned Hangouts Chat a little over one year ago. The bot-powered offering is ready for rollout, with the company detailing some of the tools it will be touting, as well as noting that it will be reaching users within the next week via the G Suite platform.

The service is currently available to those in the Early Adopter Program, with Google gauging feedback from users. To gain access though, one will need to download the application proper, as it exists separate from the well-known Hangouts app. 

As far as features go, Hangouts will have 'virtual' rooms where up to 8 000 people can be assigned to a specific project or task, with support for 28 different languages. Added to this will be compatibility with iOS or Android for mobile and MacOS or Windows for the desktop. 

Other notable aspects include 25 bots that will interact directly with other G suite apps, which means Google Drive content sharing, as well as Google Meet for setting up events in one's calendar. 

Google has also noted that it wants to work with other third-party apps that make use of bots to help develop services and foster integration with Hangouts Chat. Whether it can tackle Slack and prove more popular, remains to be seen.