Google is going to eventually replace Duo with Meet | Tech News

Google is going to eventually replace Duo with Meet

Google is not going to replace Duo with Meet just yet, but before it happens, a lot of key features from Duo will be incorporated into Meet. 

By: HT TECH
| Updated on: Aug 20 2022, 22:32 IST
With almost everyone working from home and handling everything from classes to meetings online, Google has had to move aggressively to beef up Meet to take on Zoom.
With almost everyone working from home and handling everything from classes to meetings online, Google has had to move aggressively to beef up Meet to take on Zoom. (Google )
With almost everyone working from home and handling everything from classes to meetings online, Google has had to move aggressively to beef up Meet to take on Zoom.
With almost everyone working from home and handling everything from classes to meetings online, Google has had to move aggressively to beef up Meet to take on Zoom. (Google )

Google currently has two video calling apps, Google Duo and Google Meet, now that Google Hangouts is on the way out. However, it seems like Google wants to tidy it up further and according to reports, the company plans to replace Duo with Meet.

According to 9to5Google, this discussion is a result of Google placing its consumer communication services, Duo, Messages and the Android Phone app, all under the leadership of G Suite head Javier Soltero. After this new ‘unified team' was made public in May, Soltero told employees that it did not make sense for Duo and Meet to coexist.

With almost everyone working from home and handling everything from classes to meetings online, Google has had to move aggressively to beef up Meet to take on Zoom. Like Duo, Meet is now free for everyone and is looking to capture the same market.

The focus is now on Meet and Soltero has opted to make it Google's one video calling service for both enterprise and regular customers. Internally, this is being described as a merger or two services and has been codenamed Duet - the portmanteau of Duo and Meet.

Sources told 9to5Google that this new direction and the reduced interest in creating a dedicated consumer service surprised The Duo team.

Looking back

Google Duo was announced at I/O 2016 as one half of Google's new consumer messaging strategy to replace Hangouts. While Allo, Google's text messaging service, failed, Duo found great success as an app that's focused on video.

Since then, Duo has added a web client, group calling, the ability to send “story-esque audio and video messages”, but it integrally remains a simple app with a list of contacts that you can tap to start a call.

Duo is integrated with Google Messages and Google Phone dialer and has recently added the option of letting people be reached through their email IDs. For all intensive purposes, Duo was Google/Android's version of FaceTime.

An update in April introduced the AV1 codec that improved video call quality, built-in screenshots, larger groups and the ability to save messages on Duo. Following that, in early May, Google followed that up with a “Family mode,” more virtual effects, link-based invites and 32-person calls.

Sources made it clear that at the end of this merger, Duo is going to go away and engineers who were working on Duo will move on to work on Meet's enterprise development or have left the team.

To be fair, Meet's usage has surged past Duo over the last few months. In April Google announced that Meet's peak daily usage grew by 30x with three billion minutes of video meetings and almost three million new users daily. Daily meeting participants crossed 100 million.

On the other hand, Duo reported an 8x surge in group calls in April as well as 10 million sign-ups per week and a ten-fold increase in call minutes.

The popularity of Zoom shows that regular users are fine with using an enterprise app for personal communication. And what's important in 2020 is the fact that the users are now familiar with generating a link that can be sent to other users instead of a direct contact list.

Monetised as a part of G Suite from day one, Google has been explicit about how important Meet is by integrating it with Gmail. And now, before the replacement happens, the plan is to get several key Duo features on to Meet and these include end-to-end encryption, contacting users for a video call via a phone number and 3D effects.

Google has also slowed Duo's development pace after the introduction of group conversations to the Nest Hub Max last month. Overall as well, Duo's development has been slowed down in comparison to the other video calling apps. Google provided a detailed timeline for Meet's upcoming features.

However, Duo is not going away any time soon. According to sources the timeline for this transition could take up to two years. While development plans could change, it's not happening any time soon.

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First Published Date: 15 Aug, 11:33 IST
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