Google Meet’s free access to premium features extended till September

Google rebranded its video conferencing and messaging platform 'Hangouts' to 'Meet' and 'Chat'. Google also announced it is extending free access to premium features of Meet.

Google last month announced it is making Meet's premium features free for all G Suite customers till July 1 this year. This has now been extended till September 30. Also, this offer is for all G Suite customers. Google Meet's premium features allow users to host video conferences with up to 250 participants.

Users can also live stream content with up to 100,000 viewers within a domain. Another important premium feature that G Suite customers can use is recording meetings.

Google's CEO Sundar Pichai made this announcement while updating on Meet's recent surge. Pichai said Google Meet now has over 2 million users. He also added that Google Classroom has over 100 million students and teachers using the educational platform.

Google's offer extension comes at a time when more people are using video conferencing apps for work and school due to the lockdown. This also lets Google position itself better to other platforms like Zoom, Slack and Microsoft Teams.

As for Google's rebranding of Hangouts to Meet and Chat, this change is applicable only to G Suite customers. The consumer version will still have the Hangouts moniker attached to the app. Google Hangouts is the company's longest running messaging and video conferencing service. Google has basically kept Hangouts for consumers, while Meet and Chat which are the paid versions will be for its G Suite customers.