Background blur to increase in participant view: New features coming to Google Meet

Google Meet is getting a bunch of new features like blurring backgrounds, hosting Q&As and more.

Google announced new features for Meet. (Google)

Google has been working on its video conferencing service ‘Meet' for months now. It made Google Meet free for everyone and introduced new features like custom backgrounds. Google has more exciting features coming to Meet soon.

Google Meet which was first exclusive to G Suite customers is now accessible to all users with a Gmail account. It even integrated a Google Meet shortcut in Gmail for users to easily join or create a new meeting. So here's a look at all the new features on Google Meet.

Background blur

In addition to adding custom backgrounds, Google Meet has also enabled background blur for videos. Google was found testing this feature on Meet's Android app. Google also has a feature that lets users limit background noise during meetings.

Increase in participant view

Google currently supports viewing up to 16 participants at once during a Meet video call. It is increasing this limit to up to 49 participants. That's a huge jump from the present limit. Google Meet video meetings accommodate up to 250 participants in total.

Support for Nest Hub Max

Google is adding support for Meet on its Nest Hub Max smart display. Users can simply say “Hey Google, start a meeting” or “Hey Google, join a meeting”. Users can also sync their Google Meet calls with Google Calendar and then access it directly on Nest Hub Max.

More features

Google Meet is adding more features like hand raising, new attendance system, Q&A and polling. It's also adding new moderator controls for muting, presenting and joining Google Meet calls.