On June 2nd the Google Official Blog announced the addition of a “Reply by chat” feature to the GMail interface. This will allow users to respond immediatly to an email via a chat window. The only proviso is that the sender must be online, of course.

Additionally, it will be possible to add the instant messaging conversations to the subject grouping threads that are created for its sent and recieved email.

The reply by chat interface utilizes Google’s IM Network, Google Talk.

Reply by chat