Google Meet live sharing brings shared YouTube watching, Spotify listening, and games

Abner Li | Aug 10 2022 - 9:07 am PT

As we spotted earlier this month, Google Meet is adding a “live sharing” feature that “allows all meeting participants to interact with the content that’s being shared,” including YouTube, Spotify, and a handful of games.

This lets you co-watch videos on YouTube or curate a playlist on Spotify. Outside of content consumption, you’ll have the ability to play games like Heads Up!, UNO! Mobile, or Kahoot! “during an ice breaker.”

The capability was announced as a Samsung exclusive at the start of this year. It builds on existing capabilities like polls and Q&A, with live sharing also located under “Activities” when you open the overflow menu on Android. It’s billed as letting you take a “call to a third-party app to enjoy it together.”

Taking Spotify as an example, you can “listen to music with others in real time” by inviting them to “move your call to Spotify.” This involves starting a group session (currently in beta) for Spotify Premium subscribers.

The addition of live sharing to Google Meet is reflective of Duo’s history as the fun, consumer-facing product.

Meanwhile, Google today provided an update on the Duo-to-Meet app name and icon transition. It sounds like the rebranding will be complete by the end of this month on mobile and tablets. Looking forward, Google says it will “continue to invest in bringing more features to Google Meet to help people to connect, collaborate and share experiences on any device, at home, at school and at work.”