Google Meet Virtual Background: How to add or change backgrounds in Google Meetings?

Google Meet is one of the most popular video conferencing platforms that is widely used for enterprise meetings. The service is fairly easy to use and does not come with a time limit on group calls. And while it offers a number of interesting features for enterprise meetings, it does not offer the “Virtual Background” feature.

The virtual background feature essentially allows users to display an image or a video in place of the actual background during video calls. The feature is especially helpful when you are video conferencing in a messy room. The feature is starting to gain popularity among users and is also available on WebEx for iOS.

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While Google Meet does not come with a built-in feature to blur or obscure the existing background while on camera, there are still ways you can do it. Luckily, there are a bunch of third-party tools that can build a virtual background for you without a green screen. One of the popular tools you can use is ChromaCam and can be configured in just a few minutes.

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How to change background in Google Meet?

Here are the simple steps you can use to set up your Google Meet virtual background using ChromaCam:

*You need to make sure that you have Intel 4th generation or higher (or the AMD equivalent) with support for AVX2 instruction set and OpenCL 1.2 before running Chromacam on your PC.

Step 1: Visit the official website of ChromaCam and download it. You can download the tool at this link:

Step 2: Once you have installed ChromaCam on your computer, you need to register and log in to the service using your email.

Step 3: Now, go to Google Meet at the link here.

Step 4: If you are hosting a meeting, you can click on ‘Start a meeting’ or ‘Join’ if you are a participant.

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Before you join or start a new meeting, click on the three-dotted button for ‘More Options’. Next, click on ‘Settings’ to configure your camera.

Step 5: In the Video tab, click on the dropdown under ‘Camera’. Change the camera to ChromaCam AVS (this option will be available once you have successfully installed ChromaCam on your computer).

Step 6: A new ChromaCam window will pop-up on the screen allowing you to choose a background and adjust a number of parameters including Filters, Slide and Blur level. Select a background and make the adjustments, if required.

Step 7: Once you have set a new background, just minimize the popup window and you’re done.

Step 8: Now, you can join your meeting with the new virtual background.

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Image credits: Google Meet