Google Meet’s Zoom-like gallery view is rolling out now globally

You’ll be able to see 16 people on one scree

Google Meet’s new Zoom-like gallery view is rolling out across the globe “gradually” starting today, the company said in a blog post, and it should be available to everyone by end of week, Google tells The Verge. Previously, you were only able to see four people on-screen at a time, but with Meet’s new tiled layout, you’ll be able to see 16 call participants at once. Google announced the feature was on the way last week.

Zoom’s gallery view is still able to show more participants than Meet’s — it’s possible to see the thumbnails of up to 49 people at once on Zoom, depending on how powerful your CPU is — but Meet’s jump to letting you see up to 16 people at once is a nice improvement.

Last week, Google also promised that Meet would let you present a single Chrome tab and that the service would be able to improve video quality in dim lighting and filter out background noise, and Google has shared updates on the rollout of those features. The ability to present a single Chrome tab is rolling out today. Low-light mode is rolling out to mobile users now and will be available to users on the web “in the future.” Background noise cancellation will be available to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education users on the web in the coming weeks, and “later” to mobile users.

Meet, like other videoconferencing services, has seen significant growth amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Google said in an April 9th blog post that the service is adding more than 2 million new users per day. The company has also extended free access to some advanced Meet features from July 1st to September 30th.