Ambient noise is one of the most frustrating aspects of video calls Participants can mute their microphones, but doing so is a bit tricky when a lot of talking is expected Google, however, has a plan to solve this problem

The search giant has announced a clever noise-canceling feature for its Google Meet video conferencing service This new feature uses artificial intelligence technology to intelligently filter out background noise from the other person's actual speech, which may significantly reduce the frustration of video calls

Meet's noise-canceling feature learned how to detect what is background noise and what is the legitimate voice of the meeting participant by training AI models on recordings of Google's internal meetings Having learned the difference, the AI technology can filter out distracting noise and make a person's voice sound clearer, at least according to Google's demonstration video

However, this clever noise canceling is branded as a "noise eliminator" rather than a means of completely canceling out background noise If someone who is not in the meeting but is within range of the participant's microphone begins to speak, the AI technology will likely not filter it out

However, Google appears to be working on improvements with the goal of tweaking the machine learning algorithm behind it to make this smart feature more effective Data is encrypted and used only for the noise reduction process and is not accessible by Google's other services or technologies

The noise cancellation feature has already begun rolling out for Meet for G Suite Enterprise customers, but should also be available to users of the free Google Meet service, including users of the web, Android, and iOS versions Once deployed, the noise canceling feature will be enabled by default, but can also be turned on or off in Meet's audio settings

The noise-canceling feature will allow Meet to catch up again with Zoom, which has grown rapidly during its closure due to the coronavirus; Zoom has noise cancellation to filter out loud keyboard taps and other small background noises, while Google's AI-powered technology can be used to filter out the noise of a large keyboard but does not appear to be as advanced as Google's AI-powered technology However, it does not appear to be as advanced as Google's AI technology Therefore, Meet may have an advantage when choosing a Zoom alternative