You Can Now Raise A Hand To Speak In Google Meet With New Gesture Detection

Google Meet is stepping up its interactivity game. The platform has now introduced a hand-raising gesture detection feature, allowing participants to physically raise their hands to signal an intention to speak during an online meeting.

What Happened: Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG GOOGL Google Meet allows users to simply raise their physical hand in front of their camera to indicate their wish to communicate, eliminating the need to click an on-screen button. Google announced this development in a blog post on Tuesday, and it is currently being rolled out to users.

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However, the feature is not yet available to all, according to Google. Only users enrolled in specific Google Workspace business and education plans can access it. For now, Google hasn’t provided any details regarding the feature’s expansion to other users.

The hand-raise detection operates similarly to the existing hand-raise button found on Google Meet’s control bar. Once a user raises their hand, an icon appears above the user’s camera feed, visible to all other participants. This feature is automatically disabled for the active speaker to prevent unintentional hand raises during a meeting.

To utilize this feature, users will need to enable it from the Google Meet reactions menu manually. Google also clarified that for the feature to function effectively, the user’s hand should be clearly visible and not obscured by their face or body.

The ongoing rollout for Google Workspace business and education customers could take several weeks, meaning some users may have to wait a while before they can access the new feature.

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