What you need to know
- Google is adding better lighting to Google Meet with AI capabilities.
- It will also enhance videos if you’re using an old web cam, or if you’ve got bad WiFi.
- More security features are also coming to Slides, Docs, and Sheets.
If you’ve ever wished you had better lighting during a meeting, you’re now going to get it. At Google I/O, Google Meet is going to soon have ‘portrait light,’ a new feature that is going to brighten up your meetings.
Google says that the feature “uses machine learning to simulate studio-quality lighting in your video feed, and you can even adjust the lighting position and brightness.”
This is similar to portrait lighting features found on some of the best Android phones and is just one of the examples that Google says it uses AI to make users have a better experience using its products.
“Over the last two years, many of us have gone through various versions of what the office looks like, and these changes have been a significant motivation behind some of our recent updates to Google Workplace,” the company writes in a blog post.
Because there’s been a split between people who are back in the office, and some still working from home, Google says it’s been finding “more ways to use machine learning to fight information overload and keep you feeling productive.”
Along with adding more light to your meeting videos, Google Meet will have ‘portrait restore,’ which uses AI to improve video quality.
“So even if you’re using Google Meet in a dimly lit room using an old webcam – or maybe you’ve got a bad WiFi connection – your video will be automatically enhanced,” Google says.
Google is also adding ‘de-reverberation,‘ which filters out echoes in spaces with hard surfaces, and ‘live sharing,’ which will sync content that’s being shared in a Meet call and allow participants to control the media.
Google says automated built-in summaries for Google Docs will now be extended to Spaces “so you get a helpful digest of conversations you missed.”
Meet will also now have ‘automated transcriptions,’ which will let people catch up quickly on meetings they couldn’t attend.
Finally, many of the security protections used in Gmail will now be incorporated into Slides, Docs, and Sheets. So if there is a phishing link, you’ll now be automatically alerted.
