Chat is out of beta. Messages is on for every workspace now — no switch to find, nothing to enable. The reason we built it is simple: the conversation about a project almost never lives where the project does. It is in a WhatsApp thread, someone's inbox, a Google Chat room named after a client from two years ago. Then a shoot moves, and the one person who needed to know was in the other thread. Chat puts the conversation next to the work it is about, so the context comes with it.

Every project brings its own channel

Create a project and its channel comes with it. Your clients each get a place in Messages, with their projects' channels underneath — so the conversation about a film sits with that film instead of in one endless thread per client. Every project also has a Chat tab beside its deliverables, opening the same conversation from the other direction. When a project is finished the channel moves to Archived, so the list stays as short as the work you actually have on.

Your team, and the people outside it

Direct messages for one-to-one, channels for a named group of people. If you work with someone in another workspace on the platform — a client, a freelancer, an editing partner — they appear under External DMs, kept visibly separate from your own team so you always know who is in the room.

It keeps up with you

• Unread counts on the sidebar and in the browser tab title, so you can tell from another tab that something arrived

• Optional desktop notifications — off until you turn them on, in Settings → My account → Chat alerts

• Mute any conversation that does not need you

• Search across every message you can see

• Reply to a specific message by quoting it, so a busy thread stays followable

• See who has read what

• Drag images straight into a message

Where to find it

The speech-bubble icon in the left rail, or the Chat tab inside any project.

What we want to build next: your clients in the conversation

Right now Chat reaches your team and anyone you work with who is on the platform themselves. A client who only has a share link cannot answer you yet — and that is the piece we want next: a portal your client signs into, an email when you send them something, and their reply landing back in the thread on the project it belongs to. No more forwarding feedback from an inbox into the place the work lives.

Tell us what you think

It is early for this one and we want to know how it holds up against whatever you are using today — what is missing, what would have to be true for your team to move a real conversation into it. Message us or post on the feedback board.

Thanks, Joris