Google Workspace administrators received welcome news on May 28, 2026. External interoperability between Google Chat and Microsoft Teams became generally available. The connection runs through NextPlane’s OpenHub platform. Organizations can now exchange messages, files and even start calls with partners and suppliers who live in the rival system.
This marks a significant expansion from earlier internal-focused capabilities. Companies operate in mixed environments more than ever. Employees juggle Google Chat for internal projects. They switch to Teams when suppliers demand it. The friction eats time. It fragments conversations. And it raises risks around missed context or duplicated efforts.
From Internal Links to External Reach
The August 2025 announcement first positioned NextPlane OpenHub as the endorsed solution for Google Chat and Teams messaging. Google Workspace Updates blog detailed real-time cross-platform exchange. Users stayed in their preferred app. No forced platform switches. That foundation set the stage.
Today’s update opens the doors wider. Google Chat users reach external Microsoft Teams tenants directly. Presence indicators appear. One-to-one chats flow both ways. Group conversations span platforms. Channels and Spaces sync. File sharing works. Users can initiate meetings or calls from within the thread. The May 28 post from the Google Workspace Updates blog spells it out clearly.
But here’s what stands out. A single Google Workspace domain connects to multiple external Teams tenants through one layer. No proliferation of separate connections. Governance stays tight. OpenHub deploys as a dedicated single-tenant service. It runs in a customer-owned Google Cloud project if needed. Data remains under customer control. Customer-managed identities handle authentication.
No fake accounts. No proxy tenants controlled by a third party. No cross-tenant impersonation. NextPlane emphasized these points in its technical documentation. The architecture relies on proxy guest accounts instead. Google Workspace users show up in Teams as internal guests. Teams users appear in Google Chat as Google Cloud Identity free users. Messages mirror instantly through a real-time sync engine. Nothing gets lost. No manual toggling between windows.
Voice and video capabilities arrived later. NextPlane announced native support in November 2025. Users escalate a text conversation to a call without leaving their app. They join from the other side natively. The NextPlane blog post captured the shift. “NextPlane OpenHub bridges that gap with native voice and video interoperability between Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace—so teams can escalate conversations instantly, without switching tools or changing how they work.”
Security reviews move faster too. OpenHub follows a database-free model. It applies least-privilege permissions at the application level. Data sovereignty options cover the US, EU and Asia-Pacific. Enterprises in regulated industries can opt for customer-managed instances on Google Cloud. These details matter when CISOs evaluate cross-platform tools.
Admins handle setup through familiar consoles. Register OpenHub as an enterprise application in both Google Admin console and Microsoft Teams admin center. Obtain consent from both sides. Configure at the domain level. No separate management portal appears. The NextPlane OpenHub page lists supported features in full: user search by name or email, rich text, emojis, edits, GIFs, file sharing and the full range of chat types.
Purchasing flows through Google Cloud Marketplace. Licensing follows usage. No requirement to buy extra Microsoft licenses for Google-side participants. Flexible pools avoid tying seats to specific user IDs. Deployment typically completes in days rather than months.
But licensing remains separate. Google Workspace customers must buy NextPlane subscriptions on top of their existing plans. Availability covers Business Starter through Enterprise editions. The feature rolled out to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains immediately.
Earlier experiments with similar bridges faced hurdles. Google had partnered with Mio before pivoting to NextPlane in 2025. That transition reflected customer feedback on features, compliance and total cost. SyncRivo and others offer multi-platform alternatives, yet Google chose to highlight NextPlane specifically for the Teams pairing. A SyncRivo analysis from April 2026 noted the endorsement while positioning its own broader connectivity.
Market pressure drove the change. Hybrid work normalized mixed toolkits. Mergers and acquisitions create temporary dual environments. Supply chains span vendors locked into one vendor’s collaboration stack. Joint ventures multiply the complexity. Without reliable bridges, shadow tools emerge. Email proliferates. Version control on documents breaks down.
OpenHub addresses these directly. A project team can discuss specifications in Google Spaces. Suppliers respond from Teams channels. Files move without download-upload cycles. A quick voice call resolves ambiguity in real time. Context stays intact.
Limitations exist. End users have no toggle. Everything routes through admin-configured connections. Internal interoperability within the same organization follows different rules and may face domain validation obstacles. The solution targets external parties primarily. And full feature parity depends on both sides maintaining current clients.
Still, the approach improves on past attempts. Previous federation efforts often required heavy lifting on presence, threading or media. OpenHub’s proxy model sidesteps many of those. Real-time sync reduces latency complaints. Enterprise controls satisfy audit teams.
Vamsee Jasti, Director of Google Chat, spoke to the partnership back in April 2025. The NextPlane announcement quoted him: “This expanded interoperability creates new opportunities to collaborate effectively across Chat and other platforms. By partnering with NextPlane and leveraging OpenHub, we give Google Workspace customers the flexibility to connect and collaborate across different messaging platforms while maintaining enhanced security, compliance, and cost efficiency.”
That statement holds up. The May 2026 availability completes the external piece. Companies that straddle both worlds gain breathing room. They avoid pressuring partners to adopt their preferred tool. They reduce context-switching for their own staff. They maintain governance without building custom middleware.
Watch adoption numbers in coming quarters. Early feedback from X discussions and administrator forums suggests relief rather than hype. Practical relief. Teams that once copied messages between two apps can now work in one. Decisions accelerate. Errors decrease. The mundane friction of modern enterprise communication eases, at least on this front.
Google continues iterating on Workspace connections. Calendar improvements with Outlook, Meet hardware joins for Teams meetings through partners like Pexip. Each piece fits into a larger picture. Organizations don’t standardize on one vendor. They learn to coexist. Tools that make coexistence productive win the long game.
OpenHub represents one such tool. Not flashy. Focused. Built for the reality that most large organizations inhabit today. And now available for external use at scale.
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