Connect Google Chat so Coworker can read your spaces, group chats and direct messages, summarize what happened each day, and send messages or reactions for you when you ask. This is a per-user (individual) connection: every person connects their own Google Chat account.
What Coworker can do with Google Chat
Daily conversation reports. Coworker writes one report per conversation per day: what people said, what was decided and what is still open. A conversation gets a report only when at least one person wrote something substantive that day. Short replies like "ok" or "+1" and messages from apps do not count, so a quiet day produces no report.
Answer questions about your chats. Ask things like "What did the Launch space decide this week?" or "Find the message where we agreed on the budget." Coworker reads Google Chat live, so you get the newest messages.
Act in Google Chat for you. Send a message to a space or group chat, reply in a thread, send a direct message by email, add an emoji reaction, or create a new space, group chat or direct message.
Each space becomes a Channel in your company knowledge graph, and each member becomes a Person linked to their email, so one person is one person across Google Drive, Gmail, Slack and your other sources. Group chats and direct messages appear in the graph only after at least two different people have written in them.
Before you start
You need a Google Workspace account. Personal Gmail accounts cannot connect to Google Chat.
Google Chat must be turned on for your account by your Google Workspace admin.
Google Chat is a separate connection from Google Drive and Gmail. Connecting Drive or Gmail does not connect Google Chat, even though they use the same Google sign-in.
If you do not see Google Chat under Available sources, ask your Coworker contact whether it has been enabled for your organization.
Connect as a member
Go to the Work page at app.coworker.ai.
Click Data Sources and open the Available tab.
On the Google Chat card, click Connect, then click Authenticate with Google Chat.
Sign in with your Google Workspace account. Google lists the permissions Coworker requests. Click Select all, then Continue.
When you see "You're all set!", the Google Chat card moves to the Connected tab.
Important: approve every permission. Google lets you clear individual permissions on the consent screen, but a connection without read access to spaces, members or messages is skipped during sync. If that happens, reconnect and approve everything.
Permissions Coworker requests
Read access to the spaces, group chats and direct messages you belong to, their members, messages and reactions, plus your basic profile so Coworker knows which account the connection belongs to.
Write access to send a message, add a reaction and create a space. Syncing never uses these. Coworker uses them only when you ask it to take one of those actions.
Connect as an admin
There is no admin or workspace-wide connection for Google Chat. Google does not offer an admin credential that can read everyone's messages, so each person must connect their own account. Admins can connect their own account like any member, or block the source from Source Settings.
If your Google Workspace restricts third-party apps, go to the Google Admin console, then Security > Access and data control > API controls > App access control, find Coworker and set it to Trusted.
Sending messages and reactions
Coworker never sends anything without your approval.
Ask Coworker in chat, for example: "Tell the Launch space that the release moved to Friday" or "Send Priya a direct message with today's notes."
Coworker shows a draft with the destination and the exact text or emoji.
Click Execute to send it. Nothing is sent until you do.
Messages appear in Google Chat as sent by you through the Coworker app. Coworker can only post in conversations you are already a member of.
Coworker cannot edit, delete or unsend a message, remove a reaction, @mention someone, attach a file, or add or remove people in an existing conversation. To share a file, ask Coworker to include its link in the message.
Privacy and who can see what
Conversations stay private. Only the members of a space, group chat or direct message can see it in Coworker, along with its messages and reports. Admins cannot grant wider access, and spaces that Google marks as discoverable stay private.
You see only your own conversations. Coworker uses your connection, so you see exactly what you see in Google Chat, and two people can get different answers to the same question.
Membership stays current. Coworker refreshes member lists at least once a day, so someone who leaves a space loses access within a day.
Google Groups are not expanded. If a Google Group is a member of a space, its people get access in Coworker only after they connect their own account.
History-off spaces. Messages in spaces where Google Chat history is turned off are never stored. Google deletes them after about 24 hours.
AI processing. Google Chat content is processed only by Coworker's own self-hosted AI models. It is not sold, used for advertising or used to train AI models.
Good to know
Coverage grows one person at a time. Coworker can only read conversations that at least one connected person belongs to. When two connected people share a space, Coworker reads it once.
History and freshness. When you first connect, Coworker syncs up to the last 90 days of messages. New messages usually reach Coworker within minutes. Edits, deletions and member changes arrive within a day. There is no webhook setup.
One Google Workspace organization per network. The first person to connect sets the organization. Accounts from a different Google Workspace organization, such as a consultant connecting a client account, are left out of the sync.
Meeting chats. Google Meet meeting chats appear as spaces, and reports cover only what people typed. Spoken audio is not part of this connection.
New direct messages and group chats. If the other person has not accepted your invitation yet, Coworker cannot post there until they do.
Disconnecting. When no connected member can see a space for seven days, Coworker removes it from the knowledge graph and deletes its stored message text.
Reconnect if asked. If Coworker tells you your connection expired, or a permission is missing, reconnect Google Chat from Data Sources and approve every permission.
Exclude spaces or direct messages
If you need specific spaces left out, or direct messages and group chats turned off for your network, contact Coworker support. These are set by Coworker for your network.