A mechanism is provided in a data processing system to implement a chat topic identification system for identifying chat topics in a multi-user messaging platform. The chat topic identification system receives a plurality of chat messages submitted to a communication channel in the multi-user messaging platform, performs cognitive content language analysis, cognitive personality analysis, cognitive tone analysis, social data analysis, and conversation feature analysis. The chat topic identification system stores results in a user profile associated with the user to form a user profile. A new conversation prediction engine determines a conversation separation score representing a likelihood that a new conversation is being started in the communication channel. A new conversation separation recommendation engine generates a conversation separation recommendation based on the conversation separation score.