Google Messages is creeping steadily toward a sought‑after enhancement for group conversations, evidence of which could now be within view as @ mentions are said to appear in the app’s code. Two user‑facing changes were observed early on in test builds: those tagged will be notified via an @ indicator from the conversation list, and another bait for mentions was found in the composer, which is now guessing not only after you type @ but also when username inputs start.
It’s a small but significant change that brings Messages in line with the way most modern chat apps operate in busy threads. Rather than just letting your note drown in a sea of replies, a mention specifically highlights it to the recipient — something we may all know from WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, and Teams.
Mentions Make Sense for Large RCS Group Chats
With RCS, Messages helps you bring texting to life with typing indicators, read receipts, high‑quality media, and even more. Group chat, however, is another matter when it comes to information overload. Mentions, which help center attention on the pertinent messages, let you have “notify only me” moments without having to mute an entire conversation. This is particularly useful in large family groups, youth sports teams, or at‑work project chats where dozens of messages can land in a matter of minutes.
And the stakes are higher as RCS adoption spreads. Google has reported that there are more than 1 billion monthly active users for RCS, a significant piece of global Android communication. With Apple embracing RCS for iPhone, cross‑platform group chats are poised to become even more mainstream. A polished mentions system would lessen that friction at the very moment those mixed‑ecosystem chats expand.
What’s New in Testing for Mentions in Messages
Two particular behaviors are prominent in current experiments. For starters, when you’re tagged in a thread — an @ badge will appear next to that conversation in your Messages list. That unobtrusive glyph is a helpful bit of information — faster to process than opening the thread to check if there’s any one message you need to pay attention to.
Second, the mention picker is becoming smarter. Before, suggestions used to appear once you type @. Now, when you begin typing a participant’s name, you will see recommendations to auto‑mention. That behavior emulates productivity tools where the client expects you to tag as soon as you start typing someone’s name, helping keep longer messages flowing along faster.
Google has also included onboarding tips for how to tag people, strengthening the pattern for users who have never seen a mention in Messages before. These clues are a harbinger of new Google features to come, and tend to surface shortly after server‑side toggles switch on.
How It Might Work at Launch for RCS Mentions
Expect mentions to be RCS‑first. In environments which combine participants who fall back on SMS/MMS, mentions will devolve into plain text fare sans the nifty badge or attention‑grabbing notification. The client may augment the metadata associated with tagged participants in a completely RCS group, allowing the app to expose that @ indicator and offer perhaps a “mentions only” notification option at some point.
Mentions should be add‑ons to existing functionality such as threaded replies and emoji reactions, not a replacement of them. Like a conversation built up in layers, tag someone, briefly reply, attach a reaction to the original message — all remove ambiguity from high‑velocity chats. At a product level, that fills the gap in Messages’ group chat toolkit, getting it closer to achieving parity with other competitive chat apps.
Specification‑wise, the GSMA’s RCS Universal Profile even allows for client‑level add‑ons like mentions, so this is probably not a spec blocker.
The trick is interoperability: whether other RCS clients will understand mentions in the same way and how tags will appear to users on other devices.
Availability and What to Watch for in Google Messages
There’s no official timeline for a wider rollout, and the functionality seems to be hidden behind flags in beta builds. Google often sends these updates out via new versions of its app and the back‑end server that enables features, meaning a slow rollout across regions and accounts.
Signs to look for will be the @ badge in your conversation list when someone tags you, and seeing name‑based mention suggestions as you type. If those materialize, wider availability is probably not far behind. With RCS momentum building and iPhone support on the horizon, mentions in Messages would be a timely high‑impact, low‑effort, quality‑of‑life boost for everyday group chats.
