Google rolling out two more new features to Meet

Once again Google have added new features to Meet — they are starting the game from a long way behind some of the more established players such as Zoom but their continuance to add new features to their video conferencing solution (as well as dedicated hardware) is testimony to their tenacity to get into the game more seriously.

Blurred backgrounds

A background in a video conferencing meeting can be very distracting and as such Google Meet will now allow you to blur the background. Using their AI Meet will separate you from the background and blur the background while keeping you in focus.

The new feature is built into the service and does not require any additional installations although at this stage it only supports your Chrome browser on PC or Mac desktop devices. ChromeOS and Meet mobile app support for this feature is “coming soon”.

Blurred backgrounds will begin rolling out today but it is a gradual rollout so be patient if this is your video conferencing app of choice.

More people!

Google have slowly added to the amount of people that can be seen in the tiled view on Meet but now they’ve added the ability to see up to 49 other people at one time. Along with this there is now the ability to see yourself in a small tile/thumbnail rather than in the grid in amongst all the meeting attendees.

This new feature is only available in Meet on the web and is available from now rolling out over the next couple of weeks.

2020 has brought video conferencing to the fore and going forward we suspect that many more businesses will continue to conduct business in a similar manner to now. Google have improved Meet this year a lot but seem to still only be used sparingly by businesses.

So far this year I’ve used Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Citrix something or other, and Meet (and probably others I have forgotten about) but Google seems to be the only company I have used Meet with. How about you? Any businesses you know that use Meet?