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Google Messages is closing in on RCS video call support
Sep 28, 2026 — 4:05 PM ET
- The RCS standard has announced support for native video calls in chats.
- Earlier this year, we saw Google Messages make its first reference to supporting RCS video calls.
- The feature still isn’t live, but new evidence reveals that Google’s been making further progress.
The arrival of RCS has already proven huge for Google Messages, helping to modernize the features Android users expect from their text messaging, all while helping to level the playing field with iOS. RCS is far from a one-trick pony, and even now that it’s here, we’re always on the lookout for the arrival of the latest RCS upgrades. One that’s been on our radar recently has been support for RCS video calls, and this week we’re spotting some new progress in Messages.
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Even though Messages supports video calls already, whether we’re talking about Google Meet or carrier-based ViLTE, earlier this year we learned that RCS Universal Profile 4.0 was going to do its own video thing, letting you easily start calls right from within chats.
Back in May, we identified what looked like some very, very early groundwork towards implementing RCS video call support in Messages. We just had one single text string to go on at the time, but now in the app’s new version messages.android_20260924_00_RC00.phone.openbeta_dynamic release, we’re finding a whole lot more supporting evidence.
Little by little, it looks like Google is starting to put together the UI we’ll need to connect through RCS video calls. Take a look at these strings, for instance, which seem to be part of the confirmation screens we’ll see when initiating calls:
<string name="rcs_video_bottom_sheet_call_button_text">Call</string>
<string name="rcs_video_bottom_sheet_cancel_button_text">Cancel</string>
<string name="rcs_video_bottom_sheet_heading">Call?</string>
<string name="rcs_video_bottom_sheet_heading_with_name">Call %1$s?</string>While the strings themselves are pretty innocuous, those labels accompanying them help establish that this is tied to RCS video support.
In addition to those, we’re also spotting a few other new references in the form of some internal checks the app is preparing, function names, and files being included.
Ignoring RCS video call request: no RcsVideoController is bound.
Ignoring RCS video call request: recipients are not reachable over RCS video.
launchRcsVideoCall$<anonymous>
RcsVideoCapabilityCheckerImpl.ktEven with all these new finds, we’re still not to the point yet where we can show you a proper RCS video call interface, or offer anything much more than continued assurance that: yes, Google sure appears to be working on this. For a feature that’s so visual-first, that’s disappointing, but we’ll keep digging away at new releases, hopefully finding something a little more substantial to share next time.
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