Hangouts Meet rolling out automatic adaptive layouts for video calls

At Cloud Next 2019 earlier this month, Google announced a number of Hangouts Meet features like availability in Chat, public streams, and live captioning. The latest for Google’s enterprise video conferencing service is adaptive layouts that automatically adjust to the context of a meeting.

Hangouts Meet will automatically select an adaptive layout to provide you with the “best view of the people and presentations in your meeting.” These four views will be available for the web client and on dedicated Hangouts Meet hardware.

These new layouts provide the user with a more inclusive and collaborate view of the meeting, allowing for easier interaction with remote participants while still maintaining focus on the content being presented.

Users will also have the option to select a preferred layout from the “Change layout dialog.” Available for all G Suite editions, these Hangouts Meet adaptive layouts will begin rolling out today.

Spotlight

The spotlight layout keeps the focus on the presentation or a single speaker. It’s used when you’re in a meeting with just one other participant, when you pin someone, and when there’s a presentation but no active speakers with video on.

Tiled

The tiled layout shows up to four participants on the screen to make your meetings feel more inclusive. This will be the default for smaller meetings when there is no presentation.

Side by side

The side by side layout shows up to three speakers in a larger format next to the presentation. This allows you to continue to see the presenter as they speak. This is the default when there’s a presentation and there are active speakers with video on.

Sidebar

The sidebar layout improves on the existing Meet layout by showing several additional participants in the same vertical space and using rectangular feeds to avoid participants on the edge being cropped out. This will be the default for larger meetings when there is no presentation.