GCP – Live captioning in Google Meet expanding to 4 new languages

Earlier today we announced we’re rolling out live caption support in Google Meet to four additional languages: French, German, Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish (Spain and Latin America). Live captioning in Google Meet uses Google’s speech-to-text technology to provide live captions to help participants who may be deaf or hard of hearing follow along and stay engaged. This update complements functionality already available in English.

This year has marked a dramatic shift in how many of us work and it’s incredibly important to have inclusive, accessible and fair virtual meetings, whether you’re planning a return to the office, going fully remote, or considering a hybrid model. We’ve heard from Meet users that it can be helpful to not only see who is speaking and view their expressions, but also to read the text of what they are saying. By expanding live captions to more languages, we hope to make the workplace more accessible and inclusive, in more places. In addition, we’ve made captions settings “sticky,” which means you can turn them on or off during a meeting and your preferences will be saved, along with the chosen language, for future meetings.

Live captions in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese will begin rolling out to Meet web users across all editions starting today. Learn more about the rollout in our Google Workspace Updates blog. 

Continuing to improve large meetings for more users

We also continue to update large meeting features to help organizations increase participation and engagement during a call. Previously available only to educators, breakout rooms and attendance reports are now available for more Google Workspace customers, in addition to hand raising which is rolling out to both businesses and educators.

Looking ahead

Google Meet will continue to offer unlimited calls (up to 24 hours) in the free version through March 31, 2021 for Gmail accounts to help all our users throughout the holiday season. 

To learn more about these and other updates, read our post on the Keyword.