Meet the new Meet; Google Meet updates its features.

Video conferencing has always been one of the quick and easy ways to connect with other people for personal or professional reasons. It is that extra ingredient that makes conversations far more bearable and less impersonal. Being able to see facial expressions and reactions to presentations or submissions can affect the direction of a conversation - whether to push further or take a break. 

To further push the barrier of connectivity and human interaction, Google Meet has introduced new features to enhance human connection in these times and change the future of video conferencing.

Meet the new features. 

New Meet layout 

Google Meet has introduced a new layout with all your controls being easily accessible to you during your meetings. It has created an improved way of having the most engagement with other attendees at any point during a meeting or conversation. With some of the essential controls readily available at the bottom of your screen, you can engage with your team without missing a beat. We can say Google has found a way to not overwhelm your screen as well give you just enough controls at hand to have a successful and productive meeting. This time, the controls on the bottom do not disappear when you move your mouse away.

Change your background 

With more meetings being held remotely, in the most unconventional places, we can all agree that not all our surroundings can be appropriately suited for some meetings. Google listened, observed and responded with the “Change background” feature. Which gives you several options from blurring your background to using an image of your choosing to fit the occasion. You can keep it professional, fun, whimsical, or personal with Google Meet’s “Change background” feature. Change your background before or during Google Meet calls.

Activities ‘center’

The Activities option opens up to features that contribute to effective moderations and collaboration. In here your will find; 

Breakout rooms - This will allow you to split your meeting into smaller groups. You can now have independent sessions within your existing meeting without scheduling multiple meetings. After your breakout sessions, you can choose to return to the main meeting or exit the call directly from your room. 

Polls - Making decisions during a meeting has become less time consuming as you can create a poll and allow the attendants to vote in their own time without disrupting the flow of the meeting. 

Q&A - This feature not only avoids questions being jumbled up with random chats in the chat section, but also allows you to filter answered questions and unanswered questions. Also you can choose to answer from oldest questions asked to the newest, or popular questions amongst the attendees. 

Recording - Instantly record your meetings and revisit them later when you need them. The recordings are saved within the “Meet Recordings” folder in the Meet organizer’s Google Drive. 

Whiteboarding - Bring extra to your brainstorming sessions with the digital whiteboard. Share or sketch your ideas with your team by making quick contributions and/or iterations to make timely decisions.

Present straight from docs 

Further pushing the fronts of integration, Google workspace has introduced presenting directly from Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. Use the “Present tab to meeting” button on the top right to share your screen directly from the Google docs, sheet or slide tab.  Before presenting straight from docs, join the meeting first to see if it is being recorded.

PS. This feature is only available when using a computer and the Chrome browser. 

Other features worth noting…

The “raise hands” option - Allows attendees to notify speakers when they want to contribute to the discussion.

Live caption feature - Read along using the live caption feature. You can choose the language you prefer to see your captions showing in.

Noise cancellation - In the event you are in a noisy environment, this feature will eliminate the noise in the background saving the rest of the attendees the ear trouble. Cloud-based AI filters out the distracting noise whilst pushing through your voice so that everyone can hear you clearly. 

Google keeps updating all their applications to provide a more integrated and productive experience for all its users. Keep connecting with team members with Google Meet. 

Do more reading on the improvements happening in Google Meet on a monthly basis.

Which new feature do you enjoy using so far? And how do you like the new Meet layout? We want to hear from you!

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