Google Meet Now Shows 16 Faces In A Grid, Adds Video Presentation Sharing

Online video conferencing services are on the rise these days and with the downfall of the giant Zoom, more and more services are competing in that space. The big names are naturally there, like Skype and Microsoft Teams and, of course, Google Meet. Formerly known as Hangouts Meet, Google's video conferencing service has not only gotten a new name but new features as well, including this new way to see 16 faces all at ones, exactly like the now unpopular Zoom.

Chatting with more than one person over video isn't exactly new but different services have done it differently. In the past, it was more common to focus on a single person's face, depending on who was speaking or had control. Zoom, however, popularized a grid-based layout that crammed as many as 16 heads in one screen.

Google Meet is now getting that same feature but without the security misfeatures that Zoom has become notorious for. And since you can have more than 16 people in a video conference, you can pop up a list to see who else has joined that's not in view. Now you can see everyone's reactions when you make that not so popular project proposal.

Unlike most video chat services, Google Meet and its kin are often used for business or team meetings. And what team meeting would be without some audio-visual presentation? Google Meet now has that, too, though it works by sharing a Chrome tab that's playing the video.

As you might have guessed, high-quality video and audio sharing is available only on the web browser of Google Meet. The tile-based format is also currently limited to Meet on the Web but support for large meetings and layouts will be coming to other devices as well.