Telegram is adding a new group voice chat feature that is similar to an always-on Discord room. Voice chats are now part of existing text chats and function as a persistent option for speaking live with friends or family. As they are always available, you can join and leave voice chats as you would in a Discord room or call.
Telegram is supporting “a few thousand participants”, so even larger groups for events like live events will include voice chats. The feature appears at the top of an existing group chat, if enabled, allowing anyone to participate in the conversation freely. In the desktop versions of Telegram for Windows and Mac, you can also use a push-to-talk key for voice chats to control microphone input.
Telegram also built a useful voice chat overlay for Android, which operates as a system-wide floating widget. It allows you to see who is speaking or operate the microphone and mute options when Telegram is running in the background.
At the moment, group voice chats are focused on audio, but Telegram says it will add video and screen sharing capabilities in the coming weeks. If you are interested in trying group voice chats, you will need to be a group administrator to enable the feature in the group settings menu.
Along with the option of group voice chats, the CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, revealed that the service is close to 500 million users. Telegram now plans to monetize its service with an ad platform designed for public one-to-many channels. Durov describes the platform as “one that is friendly, respects privacy and allows us to cover the costs of servers and traffic”.
December 23 update at 6:15 am ET: Article updated with Telegram’s monetization plans.