Hangouts Meet gets new adaptive meeting layouts

Hangouts Meet now has adaptive meeting layouts that automatically adjust to give you the best view of the people and presentations in your meeting.

Spotlight
The spotlight layout keeps the focus on the presentation or a single speaker. It’s used when you’re in a meeting with just one other participant when you pin someone and when there’s a presentation but no active speakers with video on.

Tiled
The tiled layout shows up to four participants on the screen to make your meetings feel more inclusive. This will be the default for smaller meetings when there is no presentation.

Side by side
The side by side layout shows up to three speakers in a larger format next to the presentation. This allows you to continue to see the presenter as they speak. This is the default when there’s a presentation and there are active speakers with video on.

Sidebar
The sidebar layout improves on the existing Meet layout by showing several additional participants in the same vertical space and using rectangular feeds to avoid participants on the edge being cropped out. This will be the default for larger meetings when there is no presentation.

In addition to seeing these new adaptive meeting layouts automatically used depending on the meeting needs, users can select a preferred layout from the Change layout dialog.