Google Meet Supports Live Captioning in 4 New Languages

Live captioning now in German, Spanish, Portuguese, and French

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Published: January 11, 2021

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

As the demand for flexible meeting and collaboration tools continues to accelerate in the era of remote work, every collaboration tool vendor is investing in constant improvements. From Microsoft to RingCentral, there are countless companies out there delivering immersive meeting experiences. Google even has a part to play in the landscape with the Google Meet experience.

Recently, Google announced the arrival of new live captioning support for Google Meet, helping people to work together more effectively no matter where they live. The live captioning support has been available in English already, but now you can access it in French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese too opening the door to a selection of brand-new users.

The Live Captioning technology in Google Meet uses the speech-to-text technology from Google to deliver live captions to those with hearing issues who need assistance in following along with a meeting. This feature could also be useful for meetings where audio quality is sub-par.

Helping Everyone to Work Together

2020 has been a complex year for many of us, marking a significant shift in the way that many of us work together. It’s incredibly important right now to have accessible, inclusive, and immersive virtual meetings, regardless of whether you’re planning on going remote fully, having employees return to the office, or you’re looking at a hybrid model.

According to Google, they received feedback from Meet users that it can help to not only see the person who is speaking to read their body language and expressions but also to read the text of their words too. Expanding live captioning functionality to more languages will help to make the workplace more inclusive all around the world. Google also added the option to switch captions on and off during a meeting, and the Meet service will save your preferences in your chosen language.

Live captioning in the new languages have already begun to roll out, and Google says that it will continue to work on updating large meeting features so that it can help companies to boost engagement and participation during a call.

Looking Ahead with Google Meet

The Google team also recently made attendance reports and breakout rooms available to more Google customers (as they were previously only accessible to Educators). There’s also hand-raising available now for both educators and businesses alike.

Going forward, Google has confirmed that Meet will continue to offer unlimited calls up to 24 hours long in the free version through to the 31st of March 2021 to assist all Gmail account holders in the current environment.

 

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