Google announces the merger of Meet and Duo

It’s been a while since Google last revamped its messaging apps, and we almost thought the search giant had finally finished constantly tinkering with its messaging apps and services. Well, that’s not it.

Today the company announced the merger of Meet with Duo. Until now the former was aimed primarily at business users, while the latter was intended as a video messaging app for all to rival Apple’s FaceTime.

Starting “in the next few weeks,” Google will add all Meet features to the Duo app. So, “later this year,” the Duo app will be renamed Google Meet, at which point Meet will be the company’s only video communications service.

At least until Google changes its mind again, that is. And this being Google, and the topic being messaging apps, it’s pretty much a given that it will. Google’s constant launch, shelving, relaunch, re-branding, re-shelving, resurrection, and merger of its various messaging-related apps has become so popular over the years that it’s pretty much a meme at this point.

Anyway, back to the ongoing merger: Duo will keep all of its existing video calling features even with the new name, and if you’re a Duo user, your conversation history, contacts and messages are safe because there won’t be any more. app to download. You will wake up one day and find that Duo has a new name: Meet and all the additional features beyond what you are used to.

These new features include customizable virtual backgrounds in calls and meetings, scheduling meetings, chat during the meeting, live content sharing, real-time subtitles, video calls with up to 100 participants, “advanced video and audio experiences with noise cancellation.” “and integration with other Google tools such as Gmail, Calendar, Assistant and Messages.

If you use Duo or Meet for free today, you won’t have to pay anything for “the new experience”. If you are currently using the Meet app, once Duo has been renamed Meet, you will be offered the option to install that app when you open the old Meet app. Until then, the original Meet app will continue to work, and Meet in Gmail won’t be affected by the app scams at all.