Video conferencing has become a staple in our professional and personal lives, surging in popularity during the pandemic and continuing to grow even with a return to normalcy.

While Zoom has held onto its top spot in the video conferencing market with a 56% share, it has also experienced the most significant decline. Meanwhile, Google Meet — trailing behind Zoom, Teams and GoTo Meeting — has shown the most growth, positioning itself as a rising star in this competitive space.

The rise of video conferencing has been nothing short of meteoric. In 2024, the global market for video conferencing software reached new heights, with more businesses and individuals relying on these tools to stay connected. While Zoom still leads the pack, Microsoft Teams is a close second with a 37% share of the market, followed by GoTo Meeting at 9% and Google Meet at 5.5%, according to Statista. However, Google Meet’s steady year-over-year growth at 10%, coupled with its recent feature updates, may accelerate its upward trajectory.

The new features were made possible through integration with Google’s artificial intelligence product Gemini, one of the top AI services available today, along with ChatGPT and Claude. Gemini excels at image- and video-related tasks, as well as research, but it works well with text-based projects too. ChatGPT and Claude claim a slight edge in the text space.

The new headline features are designed for business users and are available to those with a Workspace account or a Google One paid account. The main difference between these two products is the domain you use. You can use a Gmail domain with One but you’ll need a custom domain for Workspace, which would be a business name domain like @greattech.com.

Google knows its users, who, like many of us, are easily bored in meetings, especially when all our open tabs are calling for attention. Designed for multitaskers, Picture-in-Picture allows your meeting window to stay open while you work in other tabs. This might be a boon for those who need to juggle multiple tasks during a conference call, but it’s not necessarily good news for presenters who now have to compete with everything else on your screen. As a frequent presenter, I can assure you that your inattention does not go unnoticed.

The second feature, Take Notes for Me in Meet, lets you automatically capture meeting notes via Meet’s integrated AI, Claude. This could either help you focus on the meeting or tempt you to start another task, knowing the notes will be waiting for you later. The notes can also be translated automatically into more than 60 languages, thanks to the integration with Google Translate. A related feature offers real-time captions that can be translated for your meeting members. These are on-screen transcriptions of what participants are saying, just like closed captioning on your TV.

A Google Workspace account starts at $6 per month. For Google One, you’ll need to subscribe to AI Premium for $20 a month, but this includes Google One, making it the least expensive option. Adding Gemini to your account will run an extra $20 per month. Compared with Microsoft and Copilot, you would save $10 each month as a business user.

This brings us to the broader trend in tech: the pressure to monetize AI. Recently, tech stocks took a hit when analysts expressed concerns over the revenue potential of AI-driven products. The message was clear — simply having AI isn’t enough; companies need to show that these features can generate substantial revenue. Google’s approach with Workspace and Gemini and Microsoft’s with Office and CoPilot are steps in this direction. But the number of paying subscribers is just not yet high enough to reassure Wall Street.

In the ever-evolving landscape of video conferencing, Google Meet’s new features, powered by the AI capabilities of Gemini, could be a game changer, especially when you look at Workplace as an ecosystem. At its recent I/O developers conference, Google demonstrated other examples of Gemini working within its app. My favorite? ​​The ability to ask Gemini to summarize a series of emails from one sender and provide you with action steps, because who likes digging through email?

As companies continue to explore ways to monetize AI, users will need to weigh the costs against the benefits. For those already in the Google ecosystem, the added expense might be well worth it because they’ll have a more seamless AI experience within every Google product. But for others, it will be a difficult change and feasible only if your company backs the switch or you’re in a position to decide for yourself.

Leslie Meredith has been writing about technology for more than a decade. As a mom of four, value, usefulness and online safety take priority. Have a question? Email Leslie at asklesliemeredith@gmail.com.

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