Google Meet Enhances AI Capabilities with Gemini-Powered "Next Steps" Feature

Google Meet will now use Gemini to suggest "next steps" after your team meetings

Making sense of priorities in your work calls could soon be a lot more straightforward, thanks to an AI-assisted update coming to Google Meet. The video conferencing service has announced it will now be using Gemini to create a checklist of "next steps" following the end of every call, collating the key actions that need attention going forward. And in order to make sure nothing important gets missed, Google Meet is also making any live captions generated during your calls available for up to 30 minutes after they're created, rather than instantly disappearing when the conversation moves on. The "next steps" feature is an expansion to the existing "Take notes for me" tool launched for Google Meet back in August 2024, which aimed to identify key points in the discussion and send a recap email after a call, saving users time. Now, next steps and follow-up points will be "automatically identified and organized within the meeting notes document," with users able to review and edit as needed, and assign tasks to particular people. "This latest note-taking enhancement will help ensure important follow-ups aren't missed and keeps everyone aligned on what happens next after your meeting," a Google Workspace updates blog post announcing the launch noted. Users will also now be able to scroll back through live captions, including translated captions, for up to 30 minutes. Google says this will be particularly helpful if you've missed a portion of the conversation or you want to review specific details mentioned earlier in the conversation, with the feature available for all Google Workspace customers, as well as users with personal Google accounts. Both features are rolling out to rapid release domains now, although the "next steps" feature will take more time to be available for most as Google says it wants to "carefully monitor performance and quality." Next steps will be available to users on Google Workspace Business Standard and Plus tiers, along with Enterprise Standard and Plus users. It will also be available with the Gemini Education Premium add-on, as well as to anyone who previously purchased the Gemini Enterprise or AI Meetings & Messaging add-ons.

Gemini in Google Meet Can Now Suggest 'Next Steps' After Meetings

With this, users will be able to see the last 30 minutes of captions Google Meet is getting a couple of new features, the company announced on Tuesday. The first feature is exclusive to the Google Workspace enterprise and business accounts, and it upgrades the existing note-taking capability in Gemini. Users will now be able to see a checklist of "next steps" suggestions from the AI, based on the conversations in the meeting to help the team set up follow-up tasks. The second feature is available to all users and will let any participants see the live captions of the last 30 minutes. In a blog post, the Mountain View-based tech giant detailed the "next steps" feature. In August 2024, the company first introduced the "take notes for me" feature in Google Meet. It is an artificial intelligence (AI) feature that uses voice-to-text capability to transcribe the conversations in a meeting and summarise them in formatted paragraphs. The summary is then added to a Google Doc file and shared with all the participants. This Gemini feature is now being upgraded. Gemini will now generate a list of the next steps that can be done based on the conversations in the meeting. Additionally, the AI will also add due dates and assign them to participants that are most suitable for the task. This information will show up in the same Google Doc at the bottom of the summary. Google said users will be able to review and edit these tasks and follow-ups as needed to remove an item, change the due date or the person assigned. The post highlighted that the AI-powered feature can help align the participants on what happens after the meeting. This feature is rolling out to the Business and Enterprise subscribers of Google Workspace. Additionally, it is also available to anyone who previously purchased the Gemini Enterprise or "AI Meetings & Messaging" add-ons. The company is also rolling out another feature to Google Meet. Updating the live captions and translated captions feature, users will now be able to scroll through the captions to see the last 30 minutes of conversations. Earlier, users could only see the captions for what was being said in real-time. Google said this update will make it easier for users to review a part of the meeting quickly in case they had to drop off briefly or were not able to read the captions in time. This feature will be available to all Google Workspace users, as well as users with personal Google accounts.

Google Meet's AI transcripts will automatically create action items for you

Quentyn Kennemer is a writer who helps The Verge's readers save money by surfacing the best tech deals and presenting the latest product recommendations from our experts. He has covered tech and gaming for all of his 15-plus-year career for publications like Forbes, Business Insider, and more. Google Meet's Gemini-powered note-taking feature is getting a bit more useful for Workspace teams. It will now generate a checklist of suggested next steps at the end of your meetings, going as far as assigning due dates and attaching a primary stakeholder to the task. The note-taking feature was initially launched in August last year. I've played around a bit with it here at The Verge since then, and thus far, it hasn't produced totally disastrous results. Gemini's voice-to-text transcription can accurately separate speakers and produce a mostly accurate account of everything discussed, though it's not always perfect. It summarizes the result with a surprisingly coherent and cohesive structure in a Google Doc that's automatically shared to participants after the meeting's conclusion. By and large, I'm not ready to substitute my creative liberty with artificial intelligence. But barring any concerns of sensitive information being exposed to a large language model, I might be a little more welcoming of AI helping out with note-taking. This new action items feature will start rolling out today, though Google says that it will be rolling out at "a much slower pace than usual as we carefully monitor performance and quality."