The past few years have accelerated and deepened our use of video communications to stay in touch with our friends and loved ones, learn new things, celebrate milestones, and even welcome new family members.

To support the millions of users who rely on our technology for video calls and meetings, we’ve made deep investments in both Google Duo and Google Meet. For those using Duo as their cross-platform video calling app, we’ve introduced new features like group calls for up to 32 people, the addition of doodles, masks, and fun effects with family mode, and video calling on tablets, foldables, smart devices, and TVs. And for those using Google Meet, we’ve introduced more than 100 features and improvements since we made Meet available to everyone in 2020. This includes a more intuitive interface, virtual backgrounds and effects, live captions and features that help people feel seen and heard, like auto-light adjustments and noise cancelation. We’ve also made quality and reliability improvements as well as introducing new moderation controls to help keep meetings safe and productive. Outside of video conferencing for work, we continue to see millions of people around the globe use video meetings to host game nights, parent-teacher conferences, and gatherings of their community groups.

As part of our continued investment in helping people stay connected, and to adapt to evolving user needs, we’re upgrading the Duo experience to include all Google Meet features. This integrated experience will provide users with a single solution for both video calling and meetings with people across their lives.

One connected solution

In the coming weeks, we’re adding all the Google Meet features to the Duo app, so users can easily schedule a video meeting at a time that works for everyone, or continue using video calling to instantly connect with a person or group. Later this year, we’ll rename the Duo app to Google Meet, our single video communications service across Google that is available to everyone at no-cost.

Existing video calling features from Duo are here to stay, including the ability to make video calls to friends and family by phone number or email address, use fun filters and effects, send messages, and ask Google Assistant to call using existing devices. All conversation history, contacts, and messages will continue to be saved in the app and there will be no new app to download.

Enhanced video calling and meeting features

In addition to having new ways to connect, this upgrade will give Duo users enhanced features, previously only available on Meet, to help make the most of their time together, including the ability to:

• Customize virtual backgrounds in calls and meetings
• Schedule meetings so everyone can join at a time that’s convenient for them
• Use in-meeting chat for deeper engagement
• Live share content to enable interaction with all participants on the call
• Get real-time closed captions to better support accessibility and boost participation
• Increase size of video calls from a current limit of 32 to 100 participants
• Integrate with other tools, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Assistant, Messages and more

One experience for everyone

As part of our mission to build a connected experience for all users, we’re excited to bring our video calling and meeting technologies together into a single, powerful, easy-to-use solution. Video communications is a major area of focus for us and you’ll continue to see our investments in 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 from Duo to Meet as smooth as possible. For more information please see our Help Center.