Google adds tiled layout, more features to Meet for G Suite users
Google on Wednesday announced it's adding four of users' top-requested features to Meet, the enterprise video conferencing tool available to G Suite customers. The new features include a tile layout, a higher-quality video sharing option, a low-light mode, and noise cancellation.
Google is gradually rolling out the new features to customers globally beginning Thursday. The enhancements follow a spike in Meet's daily usage, as workers look for ways to stay productive from home through the COVID-19 pandemic. The increased need for enterprise-grade video conferencing tools has prompted Google to improve Meet's capabilities, ramp up engineering support for it, and step up its promotion of the tool. Last week, Google rolled out new security features for education customers using Meet, and it made Meet directly accessible from Gmail.
The expanded tiled layout option lets web users see up to 16 call participants at once, as opposed to just four. Google says it plans to add related updates for larger meetings and better presentation layouts, as well as support across more devices.
To share higher-quality video content with other callers, users can now choose to present a Chrome tab rather than just presenting their window or the entire screen. This is the best option for presenting high-quality video with audio, Google says.
With the new low-light mode, Meet automatically adjusts your video to make you more visible in low-light settings. The feature is currently rolling out to mobile users and will be available to web users in the future.
Lastly, the new noise cancellation feature filters out background distractions like a dog barking or keystrokes. It will be rolling out in the coming weeks, starting with web users and then to mobile users.
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