(Credit: Google)
Google Meet is hoping to break language barriers with a "near real-time" translation feature, introduced today at the company's annual I/O conference.
"Language differences are a fundamental barrier to connecting with other people—whether you're working across regions or just chatting with family abroad," Google says.
It's available now in beta for Google AI Pro ($20 per month) and Ultra (a whopping $250 per month) subscribers in English and Spanish. More languages are coming "in the next few weeks," Google says, and enterprise accounts "later this year."
Google debuted a similar feature for Workplace subscribers in 2022, but it says the new product relies on "research advances," which allows for "natural, free-flowing conversations."
Google played the video demo below on stage during the I/O keynote. It shows two women speaking to each other on a video call. At the start of the call, one turns on the Gemini-powered speech translation feature within Google Meet. Then, when she speaks in English, the other hears her in Spanish, and vice versa. There is a split-second delay when the person began talking before the translation kicked in, but the conversation still flowed well. Of course, this is a controlled demo, and the true test will be how it performs in the real world.
"This new feature translates your spoken words into your listener’s preferred language — in near real time, with low-latency, and while preserving your voice, tone, and expression," Google says. "The result is a conversation that feels authentic and natural, even across languages — whether it’s English-speaking grandchildren chatting effortlessly with their Spanish-speaking grandparents, or global colleagues connecting across continents."
Another futuristic video-conferencing tool Google debuted at the show is Google Beam, formerly known as Project Starline. It makes video calls hyper-realistic by using "an array of webcams to capture you from different angles," Google says. "Then it uses AI to merge those video streams together and render you on a 3D lightfield display — with head tracking down to the millimeter and at 60 frames per second."
Google is working with HP to launch the first Google Beam devices later this year.
The I/O keynote highlighted a laundry list of AI-powered tech features, all aiming to offer more humanlike experiences through text, speech, and video. Google continues to invest in more AI products, including transforming Search from a list of links to a ChatGPT-style conversation with AI Mode, another product coming to all users today.
"The world is responding and adopting AI faster than ever before," said CEO Sundar Pichai in the I/O keynote. "As one marker of progress, this time last year we were processing 9.7 trillion tokens a month across our products and APIs, now we are processing 480 trillion monthly tokens. That's about a 50X increase in just a year."
For more, check out our rundown of everything Google announced at I/O day one.