According to rumors, after a dramatic rise in Google Meet users, Google is planning to replace the Google Duo video-calling platform with it.
It has been 4 years since the start of Google Duo. It has been a great app for video calling. This year Google launched Meet a more advanced and app having more features. The COVID-19 situation has seen a surge of users coming on to the Meet platform.
According to the reports Google recently announced that Meet’s peak daily usage grew by 30 times with three billion minutes of video meetings and almost three million new users.
Given such usage, Google feels it is baseless to have two software providing the same service.
According to a report in 9to5Google, the new head of Google’s communication services, Javier Soltero, is looking to bring in software named as Duet that will see some of Duo’s features integrated into Meet, including end-to-end encryption, 3D effects, and contacting users for a video via phone number.
Google Meet has also been integrated along with Gmail. You can see the Meet tab in your Gmail app on android.
The timeline for this transition could take up to two years. Of course, development plans could change, but it’s not happening in the near-term. In the end, the current course sees the Duo app disappear and Meet pushed to users in its place.
Lastly, Google says it is “looking at ways that our video calling products can improve alongside one another”.
For now, this is more of a rumor than news. It looks like a sensible step to keep only one app that provides the same service as others. But if you are not in favor of axing Google Duo, you still have 2 years of Google Duo to use at max for now. This time period could extend or could reduce too.