Duo, meet Meet: One upgraded app for video calling and meetings

Aug 10, 2022

[[read-time]] min read

Dave Citron

Director of Product Management, Google Duo & Google Meet

A mother, father, and two daughters sitting in a living room next to pictures of a Meet home screen, a photo of grandparents in a video chat and two text messages

As we announced in June, we’re upgrading the Google Duo experience to include all Google Meet features and bringing our two video calling services together into a single solution. This upgrade, which started rolling out last month, gives everyone access to new features like scheduling and joining meetings, virtual backgrounds, in-meeting chat and more, in addition to your current video calling features.

Smartphone screen showing home screen of Meet app, leading to a video chat

Additional meeting features let you start an instant video call with your entire study group or connect with your colleagues at a recurring scheduled time. Before you join a meeting, you’ll be able to change your background or apply visual effects. During the meeting, you’ll also be able to use in-meeting chat and captions for more ways to participate.

Animation showing different background options on Google Meet

We’re also launching live sharing for Google Meet. Live sharing allows all meeting participants to interact with the content that’s being shared. So whether you’re co-watching videos on YouTube, curating a playlist on Spotify, taking turns while playing games like Heads Up!, UNO! Mobile or Kahoot! during an ice breaker, everyone will be able to join in on the action.

Animation of Google Meet live sharing with Spotify on a smartphone screen

What to expect

Over the past few weeks, we’ve started rolling out these new features to your Duo app, and now, users are beginning to see their app name and icon update to Google Meet. This upgrade will take place throughout the month across mobile and tablet devices, and will come later for other devices. To ensure a smooth transition, keep your app updated to the latest version.

Animation of Google Duo icon changing to a Google Meet icon

If you’re using the existing Google Meet app, there will be no change to your experience. Your existing Meet app and icon will change to Google Meet (original). You can continue using this app to join and schedule meetings, but we recommend using the updated Google Meet app to get combined video meeting and calling features all in one place. We will continue to invest in bringing more features to Google Meet to help people to connect, collaborate and share experiences on any device, at home, at school and at work.
We're committed to making the transition as smooth as possible. For more information, please see our Help Center.

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