Tech giant Google's video chat platform Google Meet has announced that after September 30, free versions of Meet will be limited to meetings no longer than 60 minutes.
A Google spokesperson told The Verge in an email, "We don't have anything to communicate regarding changes to the promo and advanced features expiring. If this changes, we'll be sure to let you know." Under the extension, anyone with a Google account could create free meetings with up to 100 people, and with no time limit.
Till September 30, anyone with a Google account was allowed to create free meetings with up to 100 people with no time limit.
"We don't have anything to communicate regarding changes to the promo and advanced features expiring," a Google spokesperson told The Verge.
"If this changes, we'll be sure to let you know."
From September 30, access to advanced features for G Suite and G Suite for Education customers, including allowing meetings of up to 250 participants, live-streams of up to 100,000 people within a single domain, and the ability to save meeting recordings to Google Drive will also not be there.
Google had allowed free access to Meet's advanced features for all G Suite customers, such as the ability to live stream for up to 100,000 viewers within their domain, free additional Meet licenses for qualifying G Suite customers without any amendments to their current contract and free G Suite Essentials for new customers.
Those features are normally only available to customers on the "enterprise" tier of G Suite, which costs $25 per user per month.
Since making Meet's advanced features free for all G Suite and G Suite for Education users, the tech giant saw daily usage grow by 30 times with Meet hosting 3 billion minutes of video meetings daily.
Google this month introduced a new feature in its Meet app where the users can now see up to 49 people at the same time in the auto and tiled layout options.
In addition, the company has added the ability to see the host of the meeting as a tile on the call.
Both the features are now available to all G Suite customers and users with personal Google Accounts.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Google Meet and other video-conferencing platforms have been chasing the meteoric rise of Zoom, with Meet passing 100 million daily participants back in April.
