Business Profile Performance API: BUSINESS_CONVERSATIONS metric deprecated, removal date January 31, 2026

What this means for you

Google used to let customers chat with a business from its Google listing. That chat service was shut down. So the number that counted those chats is going away too. Google said it would be removed on January 31, 2026, and nothing replaces it. If a report from your marketing tool still shows "conversations" from Google, that number is no longer meaningful.

The details

• Metric: BUSINESS_CONVERSATIONS in the DailyMetric enum of the Business Profile Performance API v1 (businessprofileperformance.googleapis.com).
• Deprecated: July 31, 2024, "following the Google Business Messages shutdown".
• Removal date: January 31, 2026. The change log says "There is no replacement."
• Methods affected: locations.getDailyMetricsTimeSeries and locations.fetchMultiDailyMetricsTimeSeries, which take the metric as dailyMetric or dailyMetrics.
• State today: the discovery document (revision 20261106) still lists BUSINESS_CONVERSATIONS with enumDeprecated: true and the description "The number of message conversations received on the business profile." The change log does not say what the API returns for it after the removal date, so do not rely on it.
• Related: MESSAGING_CLICKS, added on October 14, 2026, counts clicks on the message or chat button (for example WhatsApp). It is not described as a replacement.

What to do next

• Business owners: Nothing to do. Ignore any Google "conversations" number in your reports.
• Marketers and agencies: Remove Google message conversations from client reports and explain the gap from 2024 onward.
• Developers: Drop BUSINESS_CONVERSATIONS from Performance API requests and handle missing or empty values for older stored data.