Getting a group conversation going used to mean starting a regular chat and then hunting for the invite controls. The thing you actually wanted was the last step.

Now it is the first one. The New Chat button has a caret on its right side, and behind it are two options: Chat and Channel. Pick Channel and you land in a group conversation that is already set up for inviting people.

Two Ways to Start, Right on the Button

The button body works exactly the way it always has. Press it and you get a plain chat with your AI, no extra taps and nothing new to learn. The caret is a separate target, and it is the only thing that changed.

Chat

You and your AI. Same conversation you have always started, now with a name for it.

Channel

A conversation built for other people. It opens ready for you to invite them.

Collapsed sidebar keeps it simple

When the sidebar is narrowed to icons, New Chat stays a single action. The chooser shows up wherever the full button does, on desktop and in the mobile sidebar.

Picking Channel Doesn't Commit You to Anything

Choosing Channel states what you intend, and that is all it does at first. Nothing durable exists until you take one of three actions:

You add someone to it.
You send the first message.
You create an invite link.

Change your mind before any of that and there is nothing to clean up. Your sidebar looks exactly as it did, with no half-made conversation sitting in it, and the next plain chat you start is a plain chat.

What a New Channel Opens With

The difference is visible the moment it opens, so you always know which kind of conversation you are in.

It says New Channel

The title reads New Channel instead of New Chat, with a lock beside it because every channel starts private.

A card tells you what happens next

Instead of an empty conversation, you get a card inviting you to bring people in, and it states the default out loud: private, and yours to change anytime in chat settings.

The invite field is already waiting

On a wide screen the participants drawer opens on its own with the search field focused, so you can type a handle immediately. On mobile the card's button opens the same drawer.

Private until you decide otherwise

A new channel is invite-only. When you want anyone with the link to be able to join, the Public chat switch in chat settings is the one to flip.

Your Sidebar Splits to Match

One long list stopped making sense once some conversations had other people in them. The sidebar now keeps two sections. Channels holds everything with other people in it, including the ones you were invited to rather than started. Chats holds the conversations that are just you and your AI.

Sidebar with a Channels section showing lock and hash glyphs above a Chats section of solo conversations — Channels carries a lock or a # on every row. Chats carries neither.

That split is also why the visibility glyphs only appear in one place. A lock or a # sits next to every channel name, because those are the conversations someone else can be let into. A solo chat has no door to label.

Which One to Reach For

The question is simple: is anyone else going to be in this?

•Chat Drafting, research, working something out. Anything you would not want an audience for.
•Channel Planning a trip, sorting out a group order, running a club. Anything that only works once other people can see it.

Guess wrong and nothing breaks. A chat you started alone can still have people added to it, and it moves up to Channels when they arrive.

Keep Reading

Feature Guide

Start your next one as a channel

Tap the caret next to New Chat, pick Channel, and invite the people it is actually for.

Create Your AI

Starting a Channel Is Its Own Flow Now