Google has unveiled its newest innovation for virtual conference calls.
Google Meet will now include AI-powered noise cancellation as a way to position itself ahead of competitors such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
Anyone that has been on video calls in recent months will know just how distracting background noise can be, whether it be the noise of keyboard tapping or food packages opening.
“To help limit interruptions to your meeting, Meet can now intelligently filter out background distractions—like your dog barking or keystrokes as you take meeting notes,” Google said in a statement about the technology in April, when it was first announced.
“Noise cancellation will begin rolling out in the coming weeks to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers, starting with web users and later to mobile users.”
Google G Suite director of product management Serge Lachapelle said the new technology is just one part of Google’s improved video offering.
“Denoising in the cloud is only a first step into understanding each other better. There is a lot more we can to understand each other’s voices better,” he said.
“Oftentimes, laptops have really bad audio chipsets/drivers that cause echo, bad dynamic range, bad dynamic volume control on the microphone. We have been thinking a lot about the future of audio quality.”
Microsoft Teams has reportedly been working on a similar feature.
Google will be hoping the latest innovation can help it make up some ground in the competitive video conferencing space, which Zoom has enjoyed great success in since the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the globe.
LearnBonds data from May revealed Zoom had a 42.8 per cent market share on the video conferencing market.
Earlier this year, Google enabled all customers to use its premium video conferencing product free of charge until 30 September.
This story originally appeared on The Nibbler’s sister title, B&T, and was edited and republished with permission.
