Google Meet will incorporate Emoji “in-meeting reactions”

Google announced several new improvements that incorporate Google Meet into the workplace in new, fun, and imaginative ways. For example, the ability to use Meet directly within a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide and to live stream a Meet directly to YouTube is sure to become instrumental tools when it comes to productivity in a hybrid-style workplace.

To add to the assortment of new features, Google also announced yesterday that we will soon be able to use emoji reactions in Meet, a feature Google hopes will make people feel more connected. This feature was in the testing phases over nine months ago, where the UX researching team worked to choose universally-understood emojis and the timing in which they appeared on the screen to foster a feeling of connection.

Coming next month, in-meeting reactions will let attendees visually express themselves with 👍 ❤️ 😆 and more, bringing energy into the meeting and giving immediate feedback to speakers and other attendees. These reactions will appear in a participant’s video tile, or overflow alongside their name if their video tile isn’t visible.

Google Cloud Blog

The UX Research team’s goal was to create an experience that was expressive but not too distracting, so there was work to be done with things like choosing the placement of the emoji bar itself within the UI and whether both negative and positive emojis were to be included. The team also borrowed from previous or existing research with Emoji reactions on other Google products, such as what is currently being tested for YouTube.

I am very excited about all the changes coming to Google Meet and how these will improve collaboration. I can see myself using emoji reactions quite often to convey emotions that I don’t need to necessarily express vocally, especially if I’m in a noisy environment and would rather not un-mute. This feature should start to roll out this month for all of us to enjoy.