At Google I/O 2025, most hands-on demos are dedicated to Gemini AI and exciting Android XR glasses. But hiding in the corner of the ground around the coastline amphitheater in Mountain View, California is a windowless room that shows one of the company’s most promising innovations: Google Beam. In one of the rooms, I had a video chat and my conversation partner popped up from the screen in 3D.
Google Beam is the new name for Project Starline, which the company has been researching for years. The renaming was announced in a Google I/O keynote, and coincides with the beam unit that HP will sell by the end of this year. Although Google doesn't share many details, these commercial and enterprise products work in much the same way as the technology I've experienced, although they look more like traditional TVs than prototype devices.
I got a preview of the project at the time at the October 2023 code conference, and the hardware for the Google I/O 2025 demo was the same: a 65-inch display with six cameras around it, mounting it on the top and sides. (HP's commercial device will be embedded with six cameras.) The AI model is now running in Google Cloud, and Beam Team is refine to improve the quality of chat people have to do with it.
“Overall people report feeling a close connection when meetings on Google Beam,” said Patrick Seybold, head of communications at Google Beam. The team has been testing its prototype devices internally inside the building and external partners such as Salesforce.
What it feels like to chat with Google Beam
The improvements made are subtle but worth noting compared to what I remember two years ago. The Google employees I chat with (in the distant office building in front of similar beam settings) popped up from the screen, with more details on their faces and hair. It felt like they were in the room with me more than I was on a standard Zoom-style video call. I found myself gesturing more, smiling, leaning against the chair.
Since the first announcement of Starline at Google I/O 2021, the company has detailed Google's behavioral research in previous blog posts and Siggraph White Papers. This shows that Beam retains many subconscious behaviors that people don't realize they're doing in real life chats that won't happen on Zoom calls.
I certainly felt this in my bundle chat: the 3D nature lets me pick me up when my conversation partner is shifting or moving toward me, and I pick up more gestures and body language that show that this allows for the tide and flow of typical IRL exchanges. I didn't find myself talking about another person, nor did I bother me.
Some of these are the result of technical decisions – because yes, I definitely talk to someone on the 2-inch zoom window on the monitor. There is also the fact that every bondage conversation seems to be in the anticorrosion room and the ordinary background, without a lot of books and tchotchkes littering to distract me. Beam’s six cameras also track my face and show my conversation partner at the eye level, which makes me feel like having a face-to-face chat with real eye contact.
“Many elements are involved to create the feeling of presence and connection that the Google Beam experience promotes,” Seybold said. “The 3D effect, eye contact, nature scales and other key elements all play a role in promoting this immersion.”
In my chat at Google I/O, Beam Team members played a similar stunt to my conversation partner when trying to go out in Starline in 2023: pulling out an apple for me to reach out. It has similar effects, just like me only If it falls, it's too far to catch it. But I also raised my hands five-fifths and felt that I was only a few inches away from the performance. I still remember some of the things we are talking about now, which is more than some of the zoom video chats I had earlier this week.
“We've done research in these workplace environments that show people are more attentive and remember more conversations when they meet on Google Beam,” Seybold said. “We even did research and found that people showed less meeting fatigue with typical video conferences compared to Google Beam during multiple back-to-back meetings.”
Google has not provided any details on how much beam products will cost, although we may find out when more information about its beam products will be shared on Infocomm in a few weeks. Google has confirmed that it has formed customers from Deloitte, Salesforce and Citadel and calls HP's products “bringing beam devices to the workplace”, so it's very likely that the first round of products will target businesses – meaning, if I had to guess, it could be priced from the consumer market.
While not everyone needs a 65-inch display beam device for immersive video chat, I look forward to coming to my office and eventually home devices. I was smiling as I walked out of the Google I/O room – I can't say what I've done after traditional video chat.
Watch the following: I tried Google Beam in Google I/O
