Google's New Technology Could Be the Next Big Thing for Remote Workers The company will expand the testing of its innovative new hologram video chat technology, dubbed "Project Starline."
By Emily Rella Edited by Jessica Thomas
As remote work becomes an increasingly permanent fixture in many corporate workers' lives, using technology in creative ways has become crucial in keeping up team rapport and communication.
Although that's mostly done through Zoom and other video chat functions, Google is taking it one step further by rolling out what could be the next big thing for remote workers and client-facing employees around the world — hologram meetings.
Google has been working on the technology, dubbed "Project Starline," for several years, but made it public last spring.
Google explained that the new technology will appear "like a magic window, where users can talk, gesture and make eye contact with another person, life-size and in three dimensions. It is made possible through major research advances across machine learning, computer vision, spatial audio and light field display systems."
The company announced that it will expand the testing of Starline to other "enterprise partners" across a multitude of industries, such as technology, healthcare and sales. Google already has several prototypes set up in booths in its U.S. offices.
Among the companies to experience the new "early access" rollout are Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health. The companies will test the product using prototypes that Google installs in their offices.
"We want the Project Starline experience to feel natural, as if the person is sitting in the same room as you," Google said in a release. "More broadly, we are eager to enable workforces to feel energized and productive when collaborating from afar."
The company did not elaborate on what its full rollout plan is (namely when the technology will be widely available to other companies and organizations on the platform) but said that it hopes to share results and key findings from the early access program "next year."
Google's parent company, Alphabet, is down just over 25% in a one-year period as of Monday morning.
