Highlights from 2025: Google Meet Update Recap

New Layouts and Interoperability with Microsoft Teams

There were specifically a couple of big additions to Google Meet in 2025. The first saw Google introduce dynamic layouts, dynamic tiles and face match – three features that all aim to improve the flexibility of your Google Meet experience and enhance meeting equity. The rollout began in the last few days of March and continued through April and into May.

Dynamic layouts bring more flexibility to the video feed tiles, automatically adapting to fill as much screen space as possible with the most interesting video. Dynamic tiles automatically crop the room camera's feed to focus on individual participants when three or fewer people are present, providing each person with a separate camera feed instead of a shared room feed. Face match takes it a step further by associating your individual tile with your own name, boosting representation and inclusivity.

At the end of September the long-awaited and oft-requested interoperability between Google Meet Hardware and Microsoft Teams was made possible through a third-party platform, Pexip. Pexip Connect is a cloud-based platform that enables you to join Microsoft Teams calls from Google Meet Hardware. The solution works for any certified and supported Google Meet Hardware with no additional hardware required; a one-time setup can enable it across the entire organisation.

Google Meet Hardware

At the beginning of the year, January saw the introduction of two interoperability updates for Google Meet Hardware. In the first update, Zoom and Google Meet interoperability gained support for changing the meeting layout. This allowed Google Meet Hardware users to choose between 🖼️ gallery or 🗣️ speaker views in Zoom meetings whilst supported Zoom Rooms devices can choose between 🔲 tiled, 🔦 spotlight or ➡️ sidebar views in Google Meet calls.

The second interoperability update allows you to join Zoom and Webex calls from your Logitech devices running Google Meet in appliance mode. By the end of February, the full range of Logitech’s Android-based devices for Google Meet could join Zoom calls: Rally Bar, Rally Bar Mini and Rally Bar Huddle. This update meant that all Google Meet Hardware now has support for Zoom and Webex interoperability, breaking down platform barriers and providing more ways to 👥 talk to people across platforms regardless of your meeting room setup.

Also introduced in January was the ability to use your Comeen and StratosMedia digital signage content as screensavers on Google Meet Hardware devices. This allows you to display 💬 custom messages, 🖼️ images or 🎨 branding on your Google Meet devices when they’re not in use for meetings. Admins can easily set screensavers from these third-party providers directly from the Google Admin panel.

The 📆 Google Calendar guest list started rolling out to Google Meet Hardware devices in March following its initial launch on the web in 2022. The guest list shows you a list of invited meeting participants (including ❓ optional guests) who have not yet joined the meeting, along with their ✅❌ RSVP status, helping meeting hosts start calls smoothly and on time.

At the start of June, the ability to share content directly into calls via the 💻 meeting room's HDMI cable was added for Webex interop meetings. This means that you can now present both from Google Meet Hardware into Webex meetings and from supported Cisco devices into Google Meet calls.

A month later you were able to join 🔒 Client-Side Encrypted (CSE) Google Meet calls directly from Google Meet Hardware devices in meeting rooms. CSE ensures that your call content is encrypted directly on your device, using 🔑 keys only you and 👥 participants control, meaning that even Google cannot access it. In order to join, you simply select the meeting from the in-room agenda and authenticate from your personal 📱 phone or 💻 laptop. This securely grants the room access based on your individual identity.

In August, proximity detection was introduced to Google Meet, enabling automatic check-in to a meeting room using ultrasound. When joining a call in the Chrome browser, your 💻🎤 laptop microphone will listen for an 🔊 ultrasound signal from your Google Meet Hardware; if one is detected, the option to join in Companion Mode will be highlighted. This simplifies the check-in process by automatically identifying the room whilst reducing the risk of you joining the call and causing an echo.

Building upon the use of ultrasound, in December Google announced a new way to seamlessly join a meeting from an unbooked room. Available in the early preview programme, the meeting room will use 🔊 ultrasound proximity detection to present a new option in the Google Meet green room on your 💻 laptop: “Connect Room”. This will automatically make the meeting room 📞 join the call and ✅ book it (if enabled) whilst your laptop will join the call in companion mode and check you in.

Google announced an updated and refreshed user interface for Google Meet Hardware touch controllers in August and, after an extended preview window, began rolling it out at the start of December. In 2025, the update only launched to ChromeOS-based meeting room kits and is planned to expand to Android appliance mode touch controllers soon. The updated design of the interface aligns more closely with the Google Meet 🌐 web and 📱 mobile interfaces and includes a 🌒 dark mode and a 🎨 redesigned pre-call meeting screen.

Attendee Features

At the beginning of the year, Google improved meeting accessibility by allowing you to customise how screen readers announce in-meeting 😀 reactions. You can choose to 🔇 not announce reactions, 🎵 play a sound for all reactions, 👍 announce all reactions or 🗣 announce all reactions and senders based on your needs and preferences.

Then, in March, Google upgraded the image-generation model for backgrounds generated by Gemini in Google Meet and added new styles that include an 🏢 office, 📚 bookshelf, 🛋 cozy living room, 🏖 tropical beach and more.

Several updates to Google Meet’s content and screensharing capabilities were rolled out in June. They included being able to present a 📷 camera feed as content (for alternate angles or prerecorded content), ⚡ faster screensharing, improved 📹 video quality for shared content, a larger screensharing 🖱️ button and ⏯️ automatic resumption of previous presentations.

The ability to 📤 send – in addition to 📖 read – in-meeting 💬 chat messages as a livestream viewer was added in July to enhance real-time engagement in broadcasts hosted on Google Meet. At the end of the year, Google began rolling out a new “Adaptive” setting which enabled hosts to invite external guests or limit internal users or groups from joining a livestream.

In August, a new one-button fullscreen option enabled you to ↔️ expand the 🖥️ shared screen or presentation tile for Google Meet on the 🌐 web.

✨ Ask Gemini in Google Meet rolled out to Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus over September and October. Ask Gemini acts as your 🧑‍💻 personal meeting assistant. It allows you to leverage Gemini during meetings to 📝 summarise conversations, 🔎 identify action items, 🏃 catch you up on what you missed and respond to other ✍️ direct prompts.

You were able to set ⏱️ timers directly from the 📹 Google Meet side panel on the 🌐 web beginning in October. Timers are visible to everyone – though hosts and co-hosts can choose who can set or reset them – and using timers can help to structure meetings and manage time more effectively.

The ability to apply virtual 💄 make-up before or during your Google Meet calls, with a choice of several different make-up looks, also became available on both 🌐 web and 📱 mobile during October. The AI-powered make-up stays in place even as you obscure your face with a hand or coffee cup.

⌛ Waiting rooms in Google Meet, which started rolling out in late October, let hosts ⚙️👥 manage participants more effectively and prevent mid-meeting interruptions. They allow you to have participants enter a waiting room before joining the main call from where you can ✅ admit or ❌ deny entry of participants and more.

As of November, you now have expanded access to the full library of 🤩🤯💥🤸 emoji reactions in Google Meet, allowing for more ways to share feedback and engage with others during a meeting.

Towards the end of the year, Google Meet’s in-meeting chat became synced to and powered by Google Chat. This means that, within the call, all participants will benefit from a richer chat experience (including 👍🔥 emoji reactions to messages) and, outside of the call, internal participants will be able to access the meeting chat from the Google Chat UI, enabling them to send meeting materials like 📂 files and 🔗 links ahead of time or review messages after the call has ended.

Lastly, in December, Google Meet’s 🖼️ picture-in-picture mode gained support for opening automatically when sharing your screen during a call on the 🌐 web. When enabled, you’ll see both the content you’re sharing and your audience without needing to take any additional manual steps.

Takes Notes For Me

✍️ “Take notes for me” in Google Meet is a Gemini-powered feature that automatically captures 🔑 key details of what was discussed during a meeting, relieving you from the need of having to manually take notes. Gemini generates a document in Google Docs that compiles all of the notes – and its abilities were enhanced in 2025.

In February, Gemini began automatically identifying and capturing next steps that are discussed during meetings which can be useful reference points after the call and keep participants aligned. Google then added 💬 citations to the 📝 meeting notes document. Citations appear as clickable timestamps and link to the meeting transcript. This ensures that important action items aren’t forgotten and you can easily gain deeper context behind the Gemini note and verify the information.

By the end of July, the after-meeting ✉️ email notification included short 📝 summary and 👣 next steps within the body of the email, in addition to a 🔗 link to the complete document. Meeting hosts also had more options to control who receives the notes.

Google rolled out an update in October that made it easier to enable ✍️ “Take notes for me” ahead of upcoming Google Meet calls directly from 📅 Google Calendar, avoiding the need to go into the meeting records sub-menu. This can be done either whilst you’re ➕ creating a new calendar event or ✏️ editing an existing one, ensuring the feature will automatically be on during the 📞 call.

A new “Longer” option for “Take notes for me” was introduced in November allowing you to generate 📝 notes twice as long as normal. It enables Gemini to capture even more granular details from your meetings, which is useful for technical or complex discussions where extra recorded details may be required.

Language support for these features was also expanded during 2025. Specifically, the "Take notes for me" meeting notes as well as other meeting artefacts generated using Gemini in Google Meet (meeting recording, transcripts, notes and next steps) became available in 🇫🇷 French, 🇩🇪 German, 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇯🇵 Japanese, 🇰🇷 Korean, 🇵🇹 Portuguese and 🇪🇸 Spanish, in addition to English. With more languages supported, Google introduced the ability to set your preferred language ahead of the meeting so that you could be sure artefacts were recorded in the correct language.

Captions

Google made 💬 live captions – and translated captions – in Google Meet 🖱 scrollable in Feburary. The update enables you to go back and review the last ⏲ 30 minutes of conversation at your own pace.

March saw meeting transcripts and recorded captions gain support for additional languages. Specifically, meeting transcripts are now available in 🇫🇷 French, 🇩🇪 German, 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇯🇵 Japanese, 🇰🇷 Korean, 🇵🇹 Portuguese and 🇪🇸 Spanish, whilst recorded captions now support an additional three: 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇯🇵 Japanese and 🇰🇷 Korean.

In June, you were able to start 🎨 customising the appearance of captions by personalising the font size, font type, colour and background colour to suit your preferences. Your chosen configuration will persist across meetings on the same device and only impacts what you personally see on your screen.

Additionally, to help improve accessibility for a wider range of global speakers, live captions in Google Meet gained support for 🇨🇳 Cantonese at the start of October. Two months later, Google added support for translated Cantonese captions, allowing you to: translate into your preferred language what’s being spoken in Cantonese; or read in Cantonese what’s being said when another language is spoken.

Mobile App

For Google Meet on mobile (iOS and Android), Google updated the layout of meeting controls at the beginning of the year, reorganising them to make navigation faster and more intuitive. It included moving 😀 emoji reactions, the ✋ hand-raise feature, the 📞 end call button and other controls.

In the middle of the year, Google Meet's Companion Mode began its rollout to 📱 iOS and Android tablets, providing more options for how you can participate in 💻 meetings. This means that you can now use your tablet to 🙋 raise your hand, 💬 exchange chat messages, 🔎 zoom in on presented content, 👋 check into the meeting and much more.

In October, you were finally able to generate 🖼️ personalised meeting backgrounds using ✨ Gemini in Google Meet on 📱 Android and iOS, similar to the experience on the 🌐 web.

Google Admin Panel

To streamline management of Google Meet Hardware, Google made some changes to the Google Admin panel settings in August. Changes included customisable email and text 🚨 alerts, a more predictable way to schedule regular device 🔄 reboots, simplified 🌎 time zone configuration and a consolidated 📑 diagnostics, logs and error reports location.

By mid-October, Google Meet Hardware admins were no longer automatically granted full 📖 read and ✍️ write access to all of the 📅 Google Calendars in an organisation by default. Whilst 🧑‍💻 admins can still assign calendars to hardware devices, the privilege for full access to all Google Calendars will need to be enabled separately for them.

Looking Forward to 2026

We look forward to 2026 and the Google Meet developments it will bring. If you’d like to discuss any of the updates that have been shared above, or get a preview of the 2026 roadmap, get in touch with us at info@GeckoTech.cloud.

Looking for the Google Workspace updates that rolled out in 2025? Read our dedicated recap of all the Google Workspace 2025 highlights here.