Google Meet is fast catching up with Zoom, and the latter’s embarrassing involvement in privacy breaches recently gives Meet a good chance to charge ahead during this phase of coronavirus-related lockdowns. The search giant has revealed that it’s working on adding a gallery view to Meet, along with support for 16 people in videoconferences. Moreover, the service also aims to allow you to pick up calls from within Gmail.
This revelation comes from Google’s GM and VP of G Suite, Javier Soltero, who spoke to Reuters regarding the service. The addition of a gallery view will allow Meet to better compete with Zoom, which currently allows you to view up to 49 people on one screen. Google is also said to be working towards improving the video and audio capabilities of this service.
In a statement to The Verge, Google said, “With more and more people working and learning from home, we want to make it easier for you to connect and keep things moving forward. With Meet in Gmail, you can easily start or join a meeting in seconds. Our goal is to help you follow the flow of the day, seamlessly switching between email and video meetings — whichever form of communication you need.”
The Gmail integration of Meet sounds very much like how Hangouts calls work. This new feature will be seen being rolled out to G Suite customers from today onwards, for the web version of the service. As for the mobile version, it will be made available on a later date.
Last Thursday, Google announced that Meet was adding a whopping 2 million new users per day and had more than 100 million education users across 150 countries around the world.