Google Meet letting more Workspace tiers add co-hosts, updates safety features

Abner Li | Aug 12 2021 - 1:29 pm PT

Google is rolling out a handful of new features for Meet that focus on improving safety and security. Namely, the ability to have co-hosts in Meet calls is coming to more Google Workspace users.

After previously being limited to Education customers, more tiers can have up to 25 co-hosts in a meeting. This means muting participants, launching polls, or managing Q&As does not have to be handled by just one person, thus “giving [them] more time to focus on leading discussions and guiding attendees through presentations.” Once rolled out, in-call Meet settings will have a “Host management” option to enable/disable.

Co-hosts on Workspace Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Business Standard, Business Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, and Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers can:

Limit who can share their screen
Limit who can send chat messages
Mute all with one click
End the meeting for all
Control who can join the meeting and how they can join with the “Quick access” setting

“Quick access” allows automatic call entry for users in the same domain. If disabled, hosts must join first, and those that are not invited will have to request permission to enter.

Lastly, the in-meeting “People” panel is adding search to let you quickly find participants and apply any needed moderation actions. Expanded co-host availability will begin rolling out next week on Meet for Android and the web, while iOS users will have to wait until the end of the month before it starts appearing.