Google Launches Emoji Reactions for Meet Video Calls 

Google has announced that people on a Google Meet call can now react to what people are saying using not their voice, not hand-waving, but emojis. 

Reactions appeared on the bottom panel in the “smile” icon. When a participant in a video conference shares an emotion, it is displayed to the other user in the upper left corner. If many people react at the same time, a stream of reactions is shown, as in the comments on the video in real time.

Although the reaction feature is enabled by default, the meeting organizer can disable it for a specific call. Google said the rollout will begin today and be available to everyone over the next few weeks.

Along with the emoji reactions for Meet calls, Google is also releasing a Workspace update for chats that makes it easy for people to start an individual or group conversation. The previous version of chat prompted users to “Start a group conversation” when they started typing names. Google is now removing this option entirely.

Instead, users can simply enter and select multiple names to start a group chat.  And by entering one name, they can start an individual chat.