Introducing a new waiting rooms experience in Google Meet

What's happening

We’re introducing waiting rooms in Google Meet, giving you more control over your meetings. As a meeting host or co-host, you can choose to have participants join a waiting room before they join the call.

This feature is designed to prevent meeting interruptions and give you time to prepare before admitting attendees. From the waiting room, participants will see a message letting them know they're in the right place and will be brought into the call shortly. This ensures that everyone joins the meeting at the right time, leading to smoother, more productive discussions.

With this update, hosts and co-hosts can:

• Enable a waiting room before a meeting starts.
• Admit or deny entry to participants waiting to join.
• Send one-way announcements to participants in the waiting room.
• Move existing participants back to the waiting room if needed.

This is particularly useful for scenarios like board meetings, interviews, parent-teacher conferences, or client meetings where you may want to speak with participants privately before they join the main group.

Easily enable the waiting room when creating a Google Calendar event.

The waiting room provides a clear and welcoming experience for attendees waiting to join.

Getting started

• Admins:  This feature will be OFF by default for end users, but admins can change the default setting at the domain, OU, and group level. 
• End users: Meeting hosts and co-hosts can enable a waiting room when they create or edit a Google Calendar event. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using waiting rooms in Google Meet.

Rollout pace

• Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (more than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 23, 2025

Availability

Available for Google Workspace

• Business Standard and Plus
• Enterprise Standard and Plus
• Enterprise Essentials and Enterprise Essentials Plus
• Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning add-on
• Workspace Individual subscribers

Resources

• Google Help: Use waiting rooms in Google Meet