Google Meet is an impressive video meeting platform offering many features – breakout rooms and screen sharing are among them – plus closed captioning and integration with various applications. In addition, there are special touches like the ability to pin certain participants directly onto their screens or utilize speech-to-text for live captioning.
Google Meet has seen several upgrades over time. One is breakout rooms, which enable teachers and businesspeople to create smaller digital sessions where they can collaborate on projects together. Another innovation is recording meetings; this feature can help if clients or colleagues can’t attend in-person meetings.
Google Meet can be used to schedule meetings either within its app or website, by selecting “New meeting”, filling in all relevant entry fields to select a date and time, invite individuals or create guest lists, add notes about what should happen at this meeting, etc.
Joining a meeting couldn’t be simpler: on desktop simply click the link provided in your invitation or, if using mobile devices, launch their respective app and tap on the link. Depending on the meeting settings and device used you may also be required to enter a code before joining; with mobile devices you may also need to provide Google account details before joining automatically.
As with other Google products, meeting data is secured during transit and storage. Google Meet uses an unique encryption key that is generated during meeting setup, used only during its duration, then destroyed afterwards. This key serves both meeting participants (web browser, iOS/Android app and meeting room hardware) as well as Google and conforms with IETF security standards for Datagram Transport Layer Security and Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol.
Meeting controls are easily accessible from the meeting toolbar at the bottom of your screen. From here, you can manage volume of audio and camera, mute/unmute participants and record meetings; additionally you can use chat to communicate with other attendees during meetings.