Google Meet video calls made much easier! You will get Live Captions

Google Meet is one of the most popular video meeting services in the world today, alongside rivals Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other services. However, one advantage that Google has over its rivals is the integration of Google Meet inside Gmail, both in the web app as well as the mobile apps for iOS and Android keeping the service within reach of three billion active Android devices. Another advantage that Google has is the company’s research on natural language processing and voice-related technology, allowing it to offer yet another useful feature on Google Meet – translations for Live Captions.

Google Meet has offered Live Captions as part of the service for a while now, allowing users to see what other members are saying even if they have to mute their speakers or earphones. Similarly, users with speech or hearing disabilities can also easily understand what others are saying on a call, which is a critical accessibility feature. Now, Google is taking the feature one step further and adding support for translating Live Captions of conversations in a meeting to another language, the company announced in a Google Workspace update. As of now, Google Meet will translate Live Captions from English to French, Spanish, German and Portuguese, while other languages could arrive later on.

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The feature could come in very handy for long-distance education courses, where students may have a basic understanding of a language, but need to clarify specific terms or concepts, which can be translated by the service. Companies can also use the features to coordinate better across different countries, where employees can talk directly to each other and understand each other better. According to Google, translated Live Captions are in beta testing, and customers who are on Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and other eligible plans will be able to sign up to test the feature.

"Live translated captions help video call participants communicate better by translating a spoken language to captions in another language," the company explained in the post. "By helping users consume the content in a preferred language, you can help equalize information sharing, learning, and collaboration, and make sure your meetings are as effective as possible," it added. The company has been working to add features on par with rival services like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, which have added similar features to help users communicate better during the pandemic.