Following a recent announcement by Google in October, one of their many software update plans included changes to group video calling by generating a link to the Google Meet app video call option instead of the app automatically entering the call interface on Hangout.
The update was announced to be launched in November and has to be kickstarted across Version 36.0 of Hangouts for Android.
iOS also adds the new Workspace-era Google Meet icon to the top-right corner of every conversation. Users of the updated 36.0.340725045 version of Hangout on opening the app, are greeted with a banner informing them that “Video calls in Hangouts now use Google Meet That gives you live captions, screen sharing, and more.”
Google Meet video calls have a group video call capacity for only 10 participants on its free version and 25 participants for the paid subscribers.
However, one-on-one video and audio calls are still enabled on Hangout.
These changes follow a series of others as Google is in the process of discontinuing the Hangouts app with speculated company plans to limit their communication apps to just Google Chat, Google Meet, and Google Messages.