Google Meet’s new update means I can finally get work done during a meeting

Let’s face it. None of us like to be in a virtual meeting, especially when you need to have your camera on. Even worse, trying to get work done if you don’t have multiple monitors is a fun game of jumping between tabs to raise your hand, use in-meeting chat, and more.

Using Google Meet’s picture-in-picture mode was not a viable solution to this problem either, as it only allows you to use a couple of controls. Well, until now! In a blog post, Google announced a new update to Google Meet that adds a lot more controls in the picture-in-picture window.

The company specifically said that “we’re updating the Google Meet picture-in-picture experience to be more engaging and feature-rich.” Users can now access the following features and controls right from the picture-in-picture window: 

• Raise your hand 
• Use in meeting chat 
• Turn captions on and off 
• More effectively resize the picture-in-picture view 
• Access flexible layouts 

This is a huge quality of life improvement as users could previously only control their camera and microphone when using picture-in-picture.

Previously, you could only turn your camera or microphone on/off or leave the meeting from the picture-in-picture window. Our new picture-in-picture experience provides greater flexibility when screen sharing or navigating to a relevant screen for a more dynamic experience. 

I usually work from my desk, where I have an external monitor, but for the times I work from the couch (or bed, let’s be honest), being able to access all of the controls I need using the picture-in-picture mode is a great benefit. I’ll definitely start using this mode when I need to be in a meeting and am just using my laptop. I’ll be able to truly multitask instead of jumping back and forth between tabs in Chrome.

The announcement comes in the same week that Google also revealed it was bringing Smart Compose to Google Chat.