Google Meet (formerly known as Hangouts Meet) is a video-communication service developed by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. It is one of two apps that constitute the replacement for

Google Hangouts Google Hangouts is a discontinued cross-platform instant messaging service developed by Google. It originally was a feature of Google+, becoming a standalone product in 2013, when Google also began integrating features from Google+ Messenger a ...

, the other being

Google Chat Google Chat (formerly known as Hangouts Chat) is a communication service developed by Google. Initially designed for teams and business environments, it has since been made available for general consumers. It provides direct message, group co ...

. It replaced the consumer-facing

Google Duo Google Duo is a proprietary voice over IP (VoIP) and videotelephony service developed by Google, available for Android, iOS and web browsers. It lets users make and receive one-to-one and group audio and video calls with other Duo users in ...

in late 2022, with the Duo mobile app being renamed Meet and the original Meet app set to be phased out. In the early months of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, Google announced Meet was to be made available to all users, not just

Google Workspace Google Workspace (formerly known as Google Apps and later G Suite) is a collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It consists of Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Meet ...

users, in which it previously was. The use of Meet grew by a factor of 30 between January and April 2020, with 100 million users a day accessing Meet, compared to 200 million daily users for

Zoom Zoom may refer to: Technology Computing * Zoom (software), videoconferencing application * Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display * Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...

as of the last week of April 2020.

History

After being invite-only and quietly releasing an iOS app in February 2017, Google formally launched Meet in March 2017. The service was unveiled as a video conferencing app for up to 30 participants, described as an enterprise-friendly version of Hangouts. It was available through applications for desktop, Android, and an

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

. While Google Meet introduced the above features to upgrade the original Hangouts application, some standard Hangouts features were deprecated, including viewing attendees and chat simultaneously. The number of video feeds allowed at one time was also reduced to 8 (while up to 4 feeds can be shown in the "tiles" layout), prioritizing those attendees who most recently used their microphone. Additionally, features such as the chatbox were changed to overlay the video feeds, rather than resizing the latter to fit. In November 2022, Hangouts was officially converted and no longer available. Google suspended its usual 60-minute limit for unpaid accounts. In August 2020, it was reported that Google was planning to eventually merge Google Duo with the business-oriented Google Meet. In December 2021 this objective had been dropped, but Duo continued to be available and updated. App updated May 23, 2022 In June 2022, Google reversed course and announced that Duo would, in fact, be merged into Meet. The merger began in August, with the Duo mobile app being renamed Meet. The Google Duo web app now also redirects to the Google Meet web app. The original Meet app is intended to be phased out over the next months.

Features

Features of Google Meet include: * Two-way and multi-way audio and video calls with a resolution up to 720p * An accompanying chat * Call encryption between all users * Noise-canceling audio filter (depending on the license only) * Low-light mode for video * Shared whiteboard, reactions, polls, voting, Q&A (depending on the license) * Team activities – shared

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

and

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

watching, playing mini games like UNO! Mobile,

Kahoot! Kahoot! is a Norwegian game-based learning platform, used as educational technology. It has learning games, also known as "kahoots", are user-generated multiple-choice quizzes that can be accessed via a web browser or the Kahoot! app. Kahoot! al ...

and Heads Up! * Google document sharing (documents,

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cel ...

presentation A presentation conveys information from a speaker to an audience. Presentations are typically demonstrations, introduction, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea/product. Presenta ...

s) * Integration with the Google ecosystem, e.g. live streaming to

Google Calendar Google Calendar is a time-management and scheduling calendar service developed by Google. It became available in beta release April 13, 2006, and in general release in July 2009, on the web and as mobile apps for the Android and iOS platforms. ...

and Google Contacts for one-click meeting calls * Screen-sharing, browser tab sharing * Ability to join meetings through a web browser or through Android or iOS apps * "Knock Knock" shows a live preview of the caller before the recipient picks up, which Google says is to "make calls feel more like an invitation rather than an interruption". * Ability to call into meetings using a dial-in number (US numbers always; international numbers when included in Workspace license) * Hosts being able to deny a user's entry to, remove a user from, and control microphone and video access in a call. * Video filters, effects, backgrounds and augmented reality masks. * Ability to join meetings through a web browser or through Android or iOS apps

Google Workspace accounts

Features for users who use

accounts include: * Up to 100 members per call for Google Workspace Starter users, up to 150 for Google Workspace Business users, and up to 250 for Google Workspace Enterprise users. * Ability to call into meetings with a dial-in number from selected countries. * Ability to record the meeting. * Password-protected dial-in numbers for Google Workspace Enterprise edition users. * Real-time

closed captioning Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio por ...

based on

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the m ...

. * Background blurring and virtual backgrounds. * Real-time translations of the automatically generated closed captions In March 2020, Google temporarily extended advanced features present in the enterprise edition to anyone using

or G Suite for Education editions. In January 2022, these features were removed for educators and workspace users unless they subscribed.

Gmail accounts

In March 2020, Google rolled out Meet to personal (free) Google accounts. Free Meet calls can only have a single host and up to 100 participants, compared to the 250-caller limit for Google Workspace users and the 25-participant limit for Hangouts. Unlike business calls with Meet, consumer calls are not recorded and stored, and Google states that consumer data from Meet will not be used for advertisement targeting. While call data is reportedly not being used for advertising purposes, based on an analysis of Meet's

privacy policy A privacy policy is a statement or legal document (in privacy law) that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client's data. Personal information can be anything that can be used to identif ...

, Google reserves the right to collect data on call duration, who is participating, and participants'

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

es. Users need a

Google account A Google Account is a user account that is required for access, authentication and authorization to certain online Google services. It is also often used as single sign on for third party services. Usage A Google Account is required for Gmail, ...

to initiate calls and like Google Workspace users, anyone with a Google account is able to start a Meet call from within Gmail.

Technologies

In accordance with the WebRTC standard, Google Meet uses

VP8 VP8 is an open and royalty-free video compression format released by On2 Technologies in 2008. Initially released as a proprietary successor to On2's previous VP7 format, VP8 was released as an open and royalty-free format in May 2010 after Goo ...

and

VP9 VP9 is an open and royalty-free video coding format developed by Google. VP9 is the successor to VP8 and competes mainly with MPEG's High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265). At first, VP9 was mainly used on Google's video platform YouTube. ...

video

codecs A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or d ...

for video stream compression and

Opus ''Opus'' (pl. ''opera'') is a Latin word meaning "work". Italian equivalents are ''opera'' (singular) and ''opere'' (pl.). Opus or OPUS may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Opus number, (abbr. Op.) specifying order of (usually) publicatio ...

audio codec for voice stream compression. In April 2020, Google announced plans to support the AV1 video codec. Google Meet uses proprietary protocols for audio and video stream control. Interoperability between Google Meet and SIP/ H.323-based conferencing equipment and software is available for Google Workspace customers through third-party services. Google Meet is optimized for low-

bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...

mobile networks through

WebRTC WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free and open-source project providing web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication to wor ...

and uses

QUIC QUIC (pronounced "quick") is a general-purpose transport layer network protocol initially designed by Jim Roskind at Google, implemented, and deployed in 2012, announced publicly in 2013 as experimentation broadened, and described at an IETF meet ...

over UDP. Optimization is further achieved through the degradation of video quality through monitoring network quality. For

packet loss concealment Packet loss concealment (PLC) is a technique to mask the effects of packet loss in voice over IP (VoIP) communications. When the voice signal is sent as VoIP packets on an IP network, the packets may (and likely will) travel different routes. A pa ...

Meet uses

WaveNetEQ DeepMind Technologies is a British artificial intelligence subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. and research laboratory founded in 2010. DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2014 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, after Google's restru ...

Hardware

In May 2020, Asus unveiled videoconferencing hardware designed for use with Google Meet in

conference room A conference hall, conference room, or meeting room is a room provided for singular events such as business conferences and meetings. Room It is commonly found at large hotels and convention centers though many other establishments, including even ...

settings, which includes a "Meet Compute System" mini PC, and a dedicated camera and microphone. On September 15, 2020, Google unveiled Meet Series One, in partnership with

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...

, which includes a Meet Compute System with Edge TPU, "Smart Camera", "Smart Audio Bar" with noise reduction, and a choice of remote control or touchscreen that supports the

Google Assistant Google Assistant is a virtual assistant software application developed by Google that is primarily available on mobile and home automation devices. Based on artificial intelligence, Google Assistant can engage in two-way conversations, unlike t ...

References

{{Instant messaging Google instant messaging software Telecommunication services VoIP services VoIP software IOS software Android (operating system) software Cross-platform software 2017 software Web conferencing

Meet Meet may refer to: People with the name * Janek Meet (born 1974), Estonian footballer * Meet Mukhi (born 2005), Indian child actor Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Meet'' (TV series), an early Australian television series which aired on ABC du ...

Videotelephony Google services Google software Communication software