News

Background replacement videos are coming to Google Meet

Google is refreshing its Meet user interface next month for desktop and laptop users. The new Meet for web interface includes improvements to video feeds, how you view or present meetings, and the navigation bar. While some of Google’s changes are playing catch-up to what’s offered in Zoom or Microsoft Teams, they are much-needed additions.

If you’re fed up of seeing your own face during calls, you’ll soon be able to minimize or hide it entirely. New options will also include the ability to place your own video feed in a tile in the grid of meeting participants, or a floating picture that can be resized and repositioned.

Meanwhile, Google has shifted all the controls to the always-on bottom bar. That should give you more vertical screen real estate to see other people and the content they share.

If you hop into Meet calls from a mobile device, you might be pleased to learn that there’s a data saver mode coming this month. It’ll be especially useful if you have a data cap or live in a region with high data costs.

In the coming months, the web version of Meet will be able to automatically enhance the brightness of your video feed if it appears to be underexposed. A similar low-light feature landed on the Meet mobile and desktop apps last year.

There’s another AI-powered feature on the way in the coming months, but one that’ll only be available to paid subscribers. Autozoom will automatically center your face in the feed and keep it there, even if you move around.
(Visited 39 times, 1 visits today)

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.