Google Meet reportedly working on a background blur feature

Last month, Google made its popular video conferencing platform Meet free for all users, in a bid to help the millions of people working from home. Now, Google is reportedly preparing to launch a new background blur feature that will help people working from home to hide their messy rooms.

9to5 Google reportedly spotted the APK teardown of the Google Meet version 41.5 for Android, which has already started rolling out on the Play Store but is limited to only certain countries. Android users in India can download and update Google Meet version 41.0 via Google Play Store.

While the new feature will be a welcome addition to the platform, it is by no means the first to do so. One of Google Meet’s biggest competitors, Microsoft Teams already has had the feature for years now. It gives you the option to blur backgrounds by giving the video a bokeh effect. Another Google Meet competitor Zoom allows users to customize the background during a video call. Even Google Duo has its own background blur option as “portrait mode”.

Google Meet recently surpassed over 50 million downloads on the Play Store. Last month, the company detailed several new upcoming features that are designed to create a better user experience on the platform. These will include better low-light video performance, layout improvements, and more. Meet was made free to everyone with a Google account and not just education and enterprise customers via G Suite.