Google integrates its Meet video calling app with Gmail

Google integrates its Meet video calling app with Gmail

Google plans to add a Zoom-like gallery view to its business- and education-focused Meet videoconferencing service and let users take calls right from Gmail, Google’s GM and VP of G Suite Javier Soltero told Reuters in an interview. The additions come amid huge growth for Meet as families, students, and workers use the service while at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The upcoming gallery view will let users display up to 16 meeting participants in one frame, according to Reuters. That functionality is coming later this month, said Soltero. Zoom’s gallery view, by contrast, lets you see the thumbnails of up to 49 people in one screen, if you have a powerful enough CPU to display them all. Meet’s new integration with Gmail sounds as if it will let Meet users start or answer a call right from their Gmail window, similar to how you can start or answer calls using Hangouts, Google’s consumer-focused chat and videoconferencing app, in Gmail. The feature will begin rolling out for G Suit…