Zoom has swelled to 300 million daily users during Covid-19 restrictions.
Google has announced that it is making its video meeting tool, Google Meet, available for free.
Google Meet, which is a direct competitor to the likes of Zoom, will be available to anybody with a Google account to create free meetings of up to 100 people that can last any amount of time.
The search giant said the free service will initially last until the end of September, after which it may apply a limit of 60 minutes for meetings.
It will gradually become free over the coming weeks to those with a Google account, with access being given in phases until eventually everyone can join.
In a blog post, Google said: “If you have an existing Google Account (for example, if you’re a @gmail.com user), sign in at meet.google.com to get started. If you don’t have a free Google Account, it only takes a minute to create one using your work or personal email address of choice (we require this step as a security measure, and you’ll only need to do this once).”
The move is an attempt by Google to take on Zoom during the remote work surge, which has seen Zoom ballooning to 300 million daily users.
Google believes it can give Meet a free tier before eventually converting people to G Suite customers, with Zoom similarly offering a freemium model.
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