G Suite has 2B monthly active users as Google hints at better integration, smarts

As of early last year, G Suite had 5 million paying customers in steady growth for the company’s Microsoft Office competitor. An interview today reveals that G Suite has 2 billion active users as Google hints at what’s next for the service.

The new stat comes from Axios speaking to G Suite head Javier Soltero, who previously worked at Microsoft and founded mail app Accompli, which became the basis of Outlook Mobile. This 2 billion MAU count was reached at the end of 2019 and looks to be Google’s annual update about G Suite growth.

Speaking about the crowded productivity field, Soltero believes that collaboration and communication is “not a solved problem.” Part of Google’s pitch is that G Suite is an established player versus other companies that might get acquired by larger ones and have products change.

Moving forward, the ML-powered Smart Composed already found in Gmail and now Google Docs will expand to other products, though specific instances were not cited. Along with search and collaboration, that functionality is what Google is focusing on.

Its pitch in recent years has focused on leveraging AI smarts to increase end user productivity. Lastly, there was a hint in today’s interview to the rumored business messaging app that leaked in January.

He also sees room for improvement in better integrating the separate apps. ‘I think we still have work to do,’ Soltero said.

Google reportedly wants to bring together Gmail, Drive storage, text with Hangouts Chat, and Hangouts Meet video calling into one unified app. Calendar integration is also present, but users apparently still need to open the standalone client. Mobile apps have already been shown off to partners, while the most likely announcement venue is Cloud Next 2020. The physical developer conference was canceled due to the coronavirus, but will continue to take place online next month.