Google Meet Introduces New AI-Powered Features to Enhance Meeting Productivity and Accessibility
Google Meet is introducing two new features aimed at enhancing the user experience, particularly for teams and businesses. The first feature is an upgrade to the existing note-taking functionality within the Google Meet platform. This upgrade is exclusive to Google Workspace business and enterprise accounts. Gemini, the AI tool integrated into Google Meet, will now go beyond simple transcription and summarization. Previously, Gemini transcribed meeting conversations and generated summarized notes that were automatically added to a Google Doc and shared with all participants. This was introduced in August 2024 as part of the “take notes for me” feature, which used voice-to-text technology to transcribe discussions and provide a neat summary. However, with the new update, Gemini will not only generate these meeting summaries but also suggest a list of actionable “next steps” based on the conversations held during the meeting. This will help users better organize follow-up tasks, ensuring that important action items don’t get overlooked.
The new “next steps” feature is designed to enhance collaboration by automatically generating follow-up tasks that can be assigned to the most appropriate participants. The AI will propose tasks based on the context of the meeting, and it will also assign due dates to ensure tasks are completed on time. These tasks will be added at the bottom of the meeting summary in the same Google Doc, offering a seamless way for participants to view and manage action items. Users will have full control over these suggestions—they can edit, remove, or adjust the tasks, deadlines, and assignees as needed. This feature is expected to streamline the process of coordinating tasks after a meeting, aligning all participants on what needs to be done next.
This feature is part of a broader push to enhance AI-powered tools in Google Meet and will be available to Business and Enterprise subscribers of Google Workspace. Additionally, it will be accessible to those who have purchased the Gemini Enterprise or “AI Meetings & Messaging” add-ons. The goal is to help organizations improve productivity by making it easier to stay on track after meetings and ensuring that follow-up tasks are organized and clearly assigned.
In addition to the “next steps” feature, Google Meet is also rolling out another update to the live captions and translated captions feature. This update, which will be available to all Google Workspace users as well as personal Google account holders, allows participants to scroll through captions from the last 30 minutes of a meeting. Previously, captions were only visible in real-time as the meeting progressed, which could be limiting if someone needed to quickly review part of the meeting they had missed or didn’t catch fully. With this new feature, users will have the ability to scroll back and access captions from the last half hour, making it easier to revisit important moments in the meeting. This is especially helpful if a participant had to step away momentarily or was unable to read captions during a busy or fast-paced segment of the meeting.
Both of these new features are part of Google’s ongoing effort to improve productivity and communication in virtual meetings. By leveraging AI, Google Meet continues to offer tools that assist with note-taking, task management, and accessibility, making virtual meetings more efficient and user-friendly. The introduction of these features is expected to significantly enhance the overall experience for both businesses and individual users, streamlining the workflow during and after meetings while providing more flexibility in how information is accessed and managed.
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