Telegram Rolls Out Communities, Rich Text Editor and Private Bot Messages in Major Update

Telegram has rolled out a major update bringing several new features to its messaging platform, including Telegram Communities, a Rich Text Editor, Ephemeral Bot Messages and an upgraded GIF search covering more than 350 million GIFs.

The update focuses on improving how users organise conversations, create long-form content and interact with bots. Telegram, which has more than one billion users globally, is also expanding privacy-focused features with bot messages that can be shown exclusively to individual users within group chats.

Telegram Communities Bring Groups, Channels and Bots Together

One of the biggest additions is Telegram Communities, which allows multiple groups, channels and bots centred around a common topic to be connected in one place. Members of a Community can browse and join related chats, potentially making it easier for large organisations or interest-based communities to manage conversations spread across multiple groups and channels.

Administrators can decide whether individual chats within a Community are visible to everyone or hidden from specific members. Communities can also be displayed as a single expandable conversation or as individual chats, giving users greater control over how they appear in their chat lists.

By default, Communities are collaborative, meaning members can add new chats. Administrators, however, can restrict this capability through Community settings.

Telegram Gets a Rich Text Editor

Telegram has also introduced a Rich Text Editor designed to support more elaborate and longer messages. The editor supports headings, tables, lists, quotes and code blocks. Users can also embed photos and videos directly within messages.

Telegram is increasing the maximum message length to 32,768 characters, making the feature suitable for long-form posts, detailed discussions and documentation.

The Rich Text Editor also integrates Telegram's Cocoon-powered AI tools. Premium subscribers can use the AI features to generate and refine content within the editor.

Ephemeral Bot Messages Keep Group Chats Cleaner

Another notable addition is Ephemeral Bot Messages, which allows bots operating within group chats to send messages that are visible only to a specific user.

For example, a bot can privately display an AI-generated summary, confirmation, error notification, welcome message or interactive menu without showing the same message to everyone else in the group.

The feature could help reduce clutter in busy group conversations where multiple users interact with bots.

Bots can send Ephemeral Bot Messages automatically or in response to specific commands, giving developers more flexibility when designing bot-based experiences.

Telegram Expands GIF Search to Over 350 Million GIFs

Telegram has also significantly expanded its built-in GIF search. Users can now search through more than 350 million GIFs across 36 languages directly within the messaging app.

Telegram says the new search system uses offline indexing of publicly available GIFs powered by open-source AI models.

The approach means users' GIF search queries are not shared with external third-party providers, with Telegram positioning the system as a more private alternative to GIF search implementations that depend on external services.