Google Meet now lets you apply a skin-smoothing effect with its new portrait touch-up mode

Google Meet finally rolled out a portrait touch-up mode to compete with rivals Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The new capability allows you to apply beautifying features during video calls, including complexion smoothing, under-eye lightening and eye whitening.

Google now offers two portrait modes — “Subtle,” which provides light cosmetic adjustments and “Smoothing,” which has a “slightly more” noticeable difference to your appearance, wrote the company in its announcement. The mode is off by default and can be enabled in settings.

Image Credits: Google

“Whether you’ve just come back from the gym, are recovering from a cold, or are jet lagged, portrait touch-up is available to help you feel your best,” Google wrote.

The company added that the feature was highly requested, which isn’t surprising given that other video-conferencing apps are popular for their beauty effects, like virtual makeup and features that blur the user’s skin. Microsoft Teams recently partnered with Maybelline to give users the ability to alter their appearance with digital makeup colors. Google Meet still doesn’t have a virtual makeup feature.

One significant downside is that the new portrait touch-up mode is unavailable to users with personal Google accounts. To access the feature, you must have a premium account like Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Education Plus, Google One and Google Workspace Individual.

The feature is currently only available on mobile devices but will launch on the web at the end of 2023.