Google Meet is making it easier to have video calls with more people

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Google’s automatic captioning is coming to Google Meet, so you can hold international meetings without needing a dedicated translator present. That’s huge, bringing the live translation tool to video conferencing, albeit with a limited rollout to start with.

Once you’ve opted into the beta of Google Meet, you can have the app automatically translate spoken languages into another language, and show those automatically generated captions below the video feed. Currently, the feature supports meetings conducted in English, which can be translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German.

The big catch here is that you have to be on one of Google’s Workspace plans to use it, either Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, or the Teaching & Learning Upgrade plan.

It’s also only in beta right now, and your Google Workspace administrator needs to apply before you can use the tool.

READ MORE: Google Meet finally gets an unmute shortcut

That’s okay though, someone has to do the first steps so it can be tweaked for a wider audience. Google has been steadily adding new Meet features this year, as the pandemic hastened the switch to work-from-home and hybrid approaches.

Things like live backgrounds are now a staple of video conferencing, there’s now an AI-powered tool to automatically stop you from looking underexposed, personal accounts can use filters and masks, and you can react with emoji when you don’t feel like cluttering up the chat.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.