Google Meet, which competes with Zoom , will now be free for everyone, Google announced today . Until now, joining a call required a paid G Suite account.
Google is opening up free access gradually, starting next week, so it will take a few days for everyone to have access.
Starting in September, free accounts will be limited to 60 minutes of call time, and video conferences will be limited to 100 participants. The screen sharing, real-time captions, and new icon layouts that the company announced a few days ago will still be available.
to log in to the app, which most users already have. According to Google, the platform will provide greater security because the program will be less vulnerable to hacking attacks such as someone hacking into your chat.
As Smita Hashim, the company's Director of Product Management, says, "With coronavirus, video conferencing has become vital and its use is increasing every day. We are accelerating what we do, given the crisis and the needs for video calls. We have Google Hangouts but we are increasing the rate of availability of Google Meet. This is a newer product designed to offer more capabilities to participants."
Obviously, the growth of Google Meet has to do with the sharp rise of Zoom and the fact that Google couldn't quite match that comparison. It makes sense that a free and more easily accessible version of Meet would give the company the boost it needs.
When Hashim was asked how the company responded to this proposal, she replied, "The message from the leadership was simple: How can Google be more useful? A video conferencing product grows very quickly. That's why we launched the advanced features in the first stage, then we did the security and accelerated some secondary features. Seeing the demand, the final stage came very naturally."
In addition to free access to Meet, Google is also introducing a new version of G Suite, G Suite Essentials. This version includes access to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and of course Meet. The charge for its use will take effect after September, but the company has not yet decided on pricing.
It's worth noting that since last week, Meet users have surpassed 100 million, and daily peak usage is now 30 times higher than in January. Meet now hosts 3 billion minutes of video conferencing, which is a lot of time to spend in a meeting.
