Google is finally rolling out emoji reactions for Meet video calls

Google is finally rolling out emoji reactions to people using Google Meet for video calls starting today. The company said that this feature will be first available on iOS and the web with Android support coming soon. The search giant first announced this feature last year, but it is reaching users just now.

Users can click or tap on the smile icon on the bottom pane to post a reaction emoji — with support for different skin tones — on the video call. When users react with an emoji, you will see a small badge on the top-left corner of their tile on the web. If there are many people reacting at one time, you will see a stream of reactions on the left-hand side — just like comments on a live video.

While the reaction feature is turned on by default, the meeting host can choose to turn it off for a particular call. Google said that the feature rollout will begin starting today and will be available to everyone in the next few weeks.

Along with emoji reactions for Meet calls, Google is also rolling out a Workspace update for chats that easily lets people start an individual or a group conversation. The earlier version of Chat prompted people to “Start group conversation” when they started typing names. Now, Google is removing that option completely.

Rather, users can simply type and select multiple names to start a group chat. And by typing in one name, they can start an individual chat.

“With this update, users can create Chat conversations in one consistent and intuitive way, whether with one person or a group,” the company said in a blog post.

The new group chat creation feature is rolling out to end-users starting today spanning across the next few weeks.

Google is finally rolling out emoji reactions for Meet video calls by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch