If you’ve never heard of Jamboard, you aren’t alone. Though it’s been around for quite some time, Jamboard is a lesser-known Google service that gives users the ability to virtually whiteboard in an all-digital, collaborative fashion. We’ve messed with it a bit at Chrome Unboxed and if we had the need to work together in this fashion, I think it would be a go-to service. It is easy to use, works well, and is pretty full-featured at this point, too. There’s even a large touch-ready display Google sells in its enterprise and education sectors simply called the Jamboard.
Today, G Suite is announcing the inclusion of these digital whiteboards – known as ‘jams’ – right inside of Google Meet. Imagine being in a meeting with a handful of coworkers and needing to visualize something on a whiteboard. Sure, you can present your screen, but what if what you were presenting was also available for others to add to or detract from in real time? That is what Jamboard and Google Meet’s integration brings to the table.
For all G Suite domains, this new feature will be on by default as long as you have Jamboard enabled in the Admin panel. Assuming that is in place, you’ll soon see the ability to start a new whiteboard right in your Google Meet call via the 3-dot menu at the bottom-right of your screen. The feature will be arriving for both Rapid and Scheduled Release domains over the next 15 days, starting on September 22nd, 2020.
Additionally, Google says this feature will also be rolling out for personal Google accounts as well. They did not indicate any preliminary steps needed to get things rolling on the consumer side of things, so we’ll just all be on the lookout for the Jamboard feature to hit in Google Meet in the next couple weeks.
