We're excited to announce Open Chat for GoToWebinar, giving organizers the ability to enable attendee-to-everyone chat during webinars and breakout sessions. When turned on, participants can join the conversation in real time by sharing questions, ideas, reactions, and feedback with the full session audience.
Note: This is a phased rollout, currently for customers having less than 100 participants as of January 1, 2026. Further rollouts will be planned, please comment here if you have any questions.
What’s New
Organizers can now:
- Enable public attendee chat for webinars and breakout rooms
- Allow participants to message everyone in the session
- Control when to open or close chat, keeping discussions focused and professional.
- Extend the experience to attendees joining from mobile devices
A Few Important Notes
- Private attendee-to-attendee messaging is not supported
- The feature is disabled by default
- Once this setting is enabled, attendees will be able to send chat message to everyone
- The setting is currently available only on the GoTo desktop app and browser experience
- Organizers hosting the webinar from the Mobile app will not be able to enable the feature
Why Customers Asked for This
Open Chat helps create a more engaging environment where participants can:
- Ask questions in real time
- Share ideas and feedback
- React during presentations
- Participate more actively throughout the session
The result: more interaction, stronger engagement, and more impactful webinar experiences.
How to Enable Open Chat
- Open the Settings panel using the gear icon
- Navigate to:
Session → Attendee Permissions → Allow Chat - Enable “Allow Chat”
Once enabled, attendees can send messages to everyone in the session.
Tip: If you see the “Allow Chat” option under Attendee Permissions, the feature is already available for your account. Organizers hosting from mobile devices will not see this setting.
We’re excited to bring more collaboration and energy into GoToWebinar sessions with Open Chat. Please let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
