What you need to know
- Google has introduced two new features in Meet to drive engagement on calls.
- These were already announced back in June, but now they're finally coming.
- These feature rollouts will begin on October 8th for eligible accounts.
Your Google Meet calls are about to get a lot more engaging with two new features Google is adding - Q&As and Polling support. The company already announced these were coming way back in June, giving an October timeline in August. Now, they're finally here — well at least they will be from next week.
Google explained potential use cases in a blog post:
Businesses can use Q&A to help make meetings more inclusive, giving everyone the opportunity to ask questions— including those who may be soft-spoken, joining from a noisy environment, or need more time to process their thoughts,
Polls on the other and are posited as a quick and easy way to get feedback from the audience, whether in a business environment or in an education one.
[B]usiness users can easily get real-time feedback from their colleagues, teachers can quiz remote students to ensure they're absorbing the material, and sales teams can make their sales presentations to prospective customers more engaging and interactive.
Google is probably a bit too late to tempt the education market with these considering the term has already started. It's better late than never though, and these features will start rolling out from October 8th. By October 23rd, they should hit all eligible accounts. It'll be supported on G Suite Essentials, G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise, and G Suite Enterprise for Education accounts.
Google is also bringing attendance tracking support to Meet for educators, The rollout is technically already happening, but the company has issued a rollback while it deals with performance issues. A new date will be coming in the future.
