Google Meet Gets Major Update: Is The Meet App Confusion Finally Over?

| Updated: Monday, October 17, 2022, 16:39 [IST]

Google appears to be focused on enhancing the user experience of Google Meet by adding a slew of new features. Now, the company has rolled out an update to the video conferencing platform, which brings a slew of new features. Earlier this year, Google announced a merger of both Meet and Duo together which might have caused some confusion among users.

Soon after this announcement, the company rolled out a major update to Google Meet, adding features such as the ability to join meetings, schedule meetings, in-meeting captions, virtual backgrounds, and more. Let's take a look at the new features.

Transcribe Speech During Call

With the latest Google Meet update, users can transcribe video meetings and save them as Google Docs. As per an official blog post, the transcribed file will be saved in the 'Meet Recordings' folder in the host's Google Drive.

Initially, this feature can be accessed only when using Google Meet on a desktop or laptop. Also, for now, the transcribe feature supports only English. The transcribe feature will be available for meetings with a maximum of 200 invitees. The meeting host, co-hosts, or the transcript initiator will get a link to the transcription document via email once the meeting ends. The transcripted file will be attached automatically to the associated calendar invite for the meeting.

If there are over 200 participants, then the transcription will be shared with the meeting organizers, host, co-hosts, and initiators. This feature will be enabled by default and can be configured at the domain or group level. It will be rolled out to Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers starting from October 24.

Automatic Framing

Another interesting feature that will be added to Google Meet is the ability to frame video before joining a meeting. This feature will help ensure equal visibility of the content for all participants. As per the company, automatic framing will happen only at the beginning of a meeting, ensuring that there are no distractions diverting the attention of users from the meeting.

Participants will be able to reframe the video manually at any time via the settings. This feature will be turned off by default, but users can enable it during their meetings. Google said that Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, Education Teaching, and Learning Upgrade, and Workspace Individual customers will get this automatic framing feature from November 2.

Ability to Join Break-Out Rooms

Lastly, there is an ability for Google Meet users to assign conference rooms to breakout rooms while using Google Meet hardware devices. With this feature, all participants can join remotely or from the office, and get themselves engaged in collaborative working sessions.

This feature will be available by default to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, and Education Plus customers starting from October 24.

Is the Confusion Finally Over?

Earlier this year, Google officially kicked off the merger of its two video calling apps -- Google Meet and Google Duo. As a result of this merger, Google Duo got rebranded to Google Meet; however, the existing Google Meet app will be around for some time. Eventually, there are two Google Meet apps -- called Google Meet (original) and Google Meet: The updated Duo app.

Given that the Google Meet desktop version has received a slew of new features, it's hard to say which mobile app will embrace these features first. But it's still good that Google is adding more features while the merger is slowly happening.