Google Meet gets a new UI, animated backgrounds and AI features

Google Meet Developers announced a number of important improvements that will make video communication even more convenient. Here are the main ones.

Updated interface

Now, when you are viewing something or sharing with other participants in the conversation, you will have more free screen space for viewing content and other video streams. You can pin multiple tiles to customize what to focus on.

For example, you can select a presentation and a presenter, or multiple presenters at the same time. In this case, the names of other participants will also remain on the screen.

Also, now service users can move, resize or hide their own video channel. The freed space will allow you to see more conference participants.

Saving traffic

So that users can make video calls even on the road, Google is launching a traffic saving feature. It will allow you to restrict the use of data on mobile networks so that you and the person you are calling can reduce your communication costs. This feature is specially designed for countries with expensive mobile Internet: India, Indonesia and Brazil.

Light adjustment

Last year, Google began rolling out its low-light mode to Meet on mobile devices, in which artificial intelligence automatically adjusts the video so that you can be seen better when you are in the dark the room. Now a similar feature will appear in the web version of Google Meet.

Autozum

Another new AI-powered feature is Autozoom. It will help other participants in the conversation scale your window so that you are centered on the screen. For now, this feature will only be available to Google Workspace subscribers.

New backgrounds

Google also promises to add the ability to replace the background on the video. This will preserve the confidentiality of what is happening behind you, as well as make your video calls more fun, the developers write. Initially, there will be three options to choose from: class, party and forest. Others will appear later.

All of these improvements will be rolled out over this month and next.