Google Business Profiles messaging feature may be rolling out the ability to set your status to respond to messages and the ability to configure your away mode. You can set up an automatic message response to let customers know you're unavailable.
This was spotted by Shameem Adhikarath on Twitter - and while I see both features, I think the away mode setting is new, I think. But I am not sure if the availability drop-down setting is new, I do think that might be old.
Here is the availability drop-down setting in messaging:
You can toggle it to your status on the left side of the messaging screen.
But there is also this away mode setting that let's you configure your away status, it looks like this:
The help document explains, "You can set up an automatic message response to let customers know you’re unavailable. If you only respond to messages during business hours, you can schedule an away message to be sent outside those hours."
It also says this feature is available to "some users," adding that "it will roll out to all users soon."
Have you used these settings?
Forum discussion at Twitter.