Google has made it known that its two main video calling platforms – Meet and Duo are being merged into one. In practice, the company will actually be populating the Duo experience with all of Google Meet’s features without affecting the latter’s integration with Workspace and other platforms.
“This integrated experience will provide users with a single solution service for both video calling and meetings with people across their lives,” said the company in a blog post. Over the next few weeks, Google will start adding Meet features to Duo, which up to this point was ideal for personal video calls.
It will soon be able to schedule meetings, offer virtual backgrounds, and allow live-sharing content and in-meeting text chat. But that doesn’t mean Duo’s already rich array of features is going anywhere. The filters, effects, stickers, and more will still be present in the app.
“We’re committed to making the transition from Duo to Meet as smooth as possible. Admins will receive an email detailing the impact to their organization,” reads the blog post. As we said, the current Meet integrations will remain unaffected by this change. Google Workspace users will still be able to use Meet on web or mobile.
Google Duo was launched in 2016 as a multi-platform video calling platform that featured optimizations for low-bandwidth networks, end-to-end encryption, phone number integration, and seamless switching from Wi-Fi to cellular networks. It had arrived alongside a text chat platform named Allo, which got shut down in 2019.
Google Meet, on the other hand, is an offshoot of the Google Hangouts disintegration. It was made available widely during the pandemic, allowing professionals to set up video meetings using their Google IDs. It comes with all the features that you’d expect from such a platform.