“Google Cast” replaces the “Chromecast built-in” branding.

At I/O 2024, “Chromecast built-in” was quietly rebranded as “Google Cast.” Notably, this reflects a rebranding made in 2016.

At the end of 2016, the original “Google Cast” branding was phased out in favor of “Chromecast Built-in”. Given consumer awareness of affordable Chromecast dongles, this change made sense.

The name was still in use in January of this year when LG announced at CES that its 2024 webOS TVs were getting built-in Chromecast (and Google Home) support. During the on-stage announcement, Google said:

Today, we’re excited to announce that LG TVs in 2024 will now have Chromecast built-in. This means that LG TV users will be able to start a video on their phone or Chrome browser and with just one tap on the Cast icon they can start watching on the best screen in their home.

The Pixel Tablet with speaker dock also carries this branding.

When Android Automotive was announced to get Cast support at I/O, the company He said: “Google Cast (formerly Chromecast built-in) is coming to cars.”

The updated brand is indicated On Android.com (with chromecast.com/built-in Redirect to that page) and This Google support article:

Google Cast (formerly Chromecast built-in) delivers multi-screen TV and audio experiences with speakers.

Google Cast inherently includes the word “Google” in the name, so that may be why this change occurred today.

Regarding the sending functionality, end users should not expect anything to change, but they should expect the product packaging to contain a new badge.

One of the questions today is how this will affect the branding of future Chromecast devices made by Google. We reported in April that Google was working on a new Google TV-powered Chromecast. I don’t quite see Google abandoning the successful Chromecast branding – although the phrase “with Google TV” is considered outdated and should be removed. Today’s rebrand could aim to reserve “Chromecast” for first-party products.