Looker Studio is now Data Studio
After almost 4 years, Google has decided to rename Looker Studio back to its original name, Data Studio. You can learn why this move was made and why it happened in this article.
History of Data (Looker) Studio
The first mentions of Google Data Studio date back to 2016 when the tool started in beta, initially intended for large paying clients, but also included a free version with a limit of 5 reports per user. Over the first months, the tool developed and in 2018 it became generally available to all users (no longer with a limit of reports per user).
In 2019, Google announced the acquisition of Looker (a business intelligence (BI) and data analytics platform), and in late 2022, the tool was officially renamed Google Looker Studio.
In April 2026, Google announced that it was reverting to its original name, Google Data Studio.
Why did the change happen (again)?
Google officially explained this change as a need for strategic product differentiation – the Looker platform as such remains designed for business intelligence (BI), while Data Studio is focused on exploring and visualizing data on a smaller scale. We could say that Google Data Studio is designed for individuals, small and medium-sized businesses that need to connect and visualize data in one place, and Looker is designed for larger companies with higher demands for working with data.
What are the next steps?
The good news is that Looker Studio users don’t need to take any action. The transition from Looker Studio to Data Studio will be fully managed by Google and the transition will be smooth and seamless. All reports and connections will be preserved – the only significant change will be the change of domain from lookerstudio.google.com to datastudio.google.com – while both versions will remain functional (the “lookerstudio” version will automatically redirect to “datastudio”).
Google promises to further integrate AI into Data Studio and gradually add more features, with more to be announced at Google Cloud Next ‘26 in late April.
