Google Meet Now Offers Quick Access to Effects Before, During Video Calls

Google Meet is bringing a new settings panel to offer quick access to effects such as background blur, background images, and styles. This quick access panel will be available before and during a video call. Users can test the effects before a call, in Google Meet's Green Room. It allows users to try out different effects and experiment with it. Google says that the new quick settings panel in Google Meet is rolling out in a gradual manner.

The tech giant announced the arrival of the new settings panel via a blog post. This panel is accessible by tapping on the three-dotted option button and selecting Apply visual effects to open the sidebar menu. If you wish to try the effects before a Google Meet call then just select the Effects tab from the Green Room interface and preview all the effects or apply blur to the background before joining a call.

This new panel will be available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers. It will be disabled by default for Education and Enterprise for Education domains and admins will have to enable it manually for all users. As mentioned, the rollout is taking place in a gradual manner and may take up to a month for all users to get it.

Google Meet recently also introduced the ability to add up to 25 co-hosts per meeting. All the co-hosts will get to access and utilise the controls available with the host. The search giant also updated the People panel by adding the ability to search for a participant in the meeting. This will allow hosts to quickly navigate to a user, mute their microphone, remove them from the meeting, or grant them co-host privileges. Co-hosts can be identified with a security shield icon.