Google Beam
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| Google Beam | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Type | Telepresence |
| Subtype | 3D video communication |
| Creator | |
| Developer | |
| Manufacturer | HP (HP Dimension with Google Beam) |
| Devices | HP Dimension with Google Beam |
| Release Date | Announced as Project Starline on May 18, 2021; renamed Google Beam on May 20, 2025 |
| Price | US$24,999 for the HP Dimension hardware (announced June 2025); annual Google Beam license sold separately |
| Website | https://beam.google |
Google Beam (known until May 2025 as Project Starline) is a 3D video communication (telepresence) platform from Google that shows a remote person life-size and in three dimensions on what Google calls a light field display, without glasses or a headset.[1] Google announced the research project at Google I/O on May 18, 2021, as a booth that combined computer vision, machine learning, spatial audio and real-time compression.[2][3] After trials with enterprise partners and a smaller prototype in 2023, Google renamed the project Google Beam at I/O on May 20, 2025, and described it as an "AI-first" platform whose volumetric video model turns standard 2D video streams into 3D.[1]
The first Beam device is the HP Dimension with Google Beam, a 65-inch display unit built by HP and unveiled at InfoComm 2025 at a price of US$24,999, with the Beam license sold separately.[4][5] On September 23, 2026, Google said Beam units were shipping to customers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan.[6] The system is not a VR or AR headset product, but it reproduces stereopsis and motion parallax with head-tracked rendering, and the Starline researchers chose a screen over a headset partly because of the weight and discomfort of most headsets and their limited resolution and field of view.[7]
History
Project Starline (2021)
Google presented Project Starline in a May 18, 2021 post by Clay Bavor, then a Google vice president. He described it as a "magic window" through which a user sees another person "life-size and in three dimensions", and wrote that the system relied on computer vision, machine learning, spatial audio, real-time compression and a light field display system that needs no glasses or headset. At the time it ran on custom-built hardware in a few Google offices; Google had used it for thousands of hours internally in the Bay Area, New York and Seattle, had shown it to enterprise partners in healthcare and media, and planned trial deployments with enterprise partners later in 2021.[3] Road to VR reported that Google called the project "years in the making", and that, according to Google, the raw captured data ran to "gigabits per second" before compression cut it by a factor of 100.[2]
In November 2021 Google moved Starline, together with its AR and VR efforts and the Area 120 incubator, into a new Labs group led by Bavor that reported directly to CEO Sundar Pichai.[8] The system was described in detail in a paper published in ACM Transactions on Graphics in December 2021 and presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2021.[7]
Early access program (2022)
On October 11, 2022, Google announced an early access program. Prototypes were by then in use in Google offices across the US for meetings, onboarding and getting to know colleagues, and more than 100 enterprise partners in media, healthcare and retail had tried demonstrations at Google offices. Google said it would begin installing prototypes in the offices of Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health for regular testing that year.[9][10]
Smaller prototype (2023)
At Google I/O 2023 Google showed a new prototype. Andrew Nartker, the project's general manager, wrote on May 10, 2023 that earlier versions filled a room and needed complex hardware such as infrared light emitters and special cameras, while the new one was closer to the size of a flat-screen TV. Google credited new AI techniques that need only a few standard cameras to produce higher-quality 3D images. Salesforce, T-Mobile and WeWork were testing it through the early access program.[11][12] TechCrunch, which tried it at I/O, counted three camera modules on the edges of the screen, on the top and on both sides.[13] A Google Research team demonstrated a Starline prototype in the Emerging Technologies program of SIGGRAPH 2024, describing endstations that combine face tracking, "real-time neural view synthesis", spatial audio, multi-stream compression and a high-resolution autostereoscopic display.[14]
HP partnership (2024)
On May 13, 2024, Google said it was taking Starline "out of the lab" and partnering with HP to begin commercializing it in 2025, with the aim of letting it work from video conferencing services companies already use, such as Google Meet and Zoom.[15][16]
Renaming to Google Beam (2025)
At Google I/O on May 20, 2025, Google announced that Project Starline was "evolving into" a 3D video communication platform called Google Beam. Nartker, now general manager of Google Beam, wrote that an AI volumetric video model makes calls "appear fully 3D from any perspective" and that the platform runs on Google Cloud. Google said it was working with Zoom and HP to bring Beam to enterprises, with channel partners Diversified and AVI-SPL, and named Deloitte, Salesforce, Citadel, NEC, Hackensack Meridian Health, Duolingo and Recruit as companies ready to use it.[1] TechCrunch reported that Beam uses a six-camera array, and that Google claimed "near-perfect" millimeter-level head tracking and video streaming at 60 frames per second. Google CEO Sundar Pichai called the result "a very natural and a deeply immersive conversational experience" in a press briefing.[17]
Google also said it was "exploring speech translation with Google Beam" and launched speech translation in Google Meet the same day, offering near real-time translated conversations that keep the speaker's voice, tone and expressions.[1] On January 7, 2026, Google said that speech translation in Meet, then in alpha, would reach general availability on January 27, 2026, on plans including Business Standard and Plus, Enterprise Standard and Plus, Frontline Plus, and Google AI Pro and Ultra.[18]
HP Dimension and commercial rollout (2025-2026)
HP unveiled the HP Dimension with Google Beam at InfoComm 2025 in Orlando on June 11, 2025. HP's release says the unit combines a 3D light field display, adaptive lighting, six-camera capture, spatial audio and AI, provides a native Zoom Rooms or Google Meet experience, and supports one-on-one 3D calls, traditional 2D group meetings and interoperability with cloud video services such as Microsoft Teams and Webex.[4] 9to5Google reported a price of US$24,999, a separately purchased Google Beam license, and availability for select enterprise customers in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany and Japan starting late 2025.[5] Engadget called it "an enterprise product through and through".[19]
On September 23, 2026, Aaron Luber, Google Beam's director of business development, announced that Beam units were shipping to customers in six countries (the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany and Japan), supported by 18 channel partners. Google named Bain and Company, which had tested the system for campus recruiting and candidate interviews, along with Netflix and Capital Group among its first customers. It also announced a "Beam extended network" with the flexible workspace operator Industrious, under which HP Dimension units can be booked at select Industrious locations in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City and Palo Alto from October 2026.[6] HP and Google announced the expanded availability the same day at Google Enterprise Summit.[20]
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| May 18, 2021 | Project Starline announced at Google I/O[3] |
| November 2021 | Starline moved into Google's new Labs group under Clay Bavor[8] |
| December 2021 | System paper published in ACM Transactions on Graphics[7] |
| October 11, 2022 | Early access program with Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health[9] |
| May 10, 2023 | Smaller, AI-based prototype shown at Google I/O 2023[11] |
| May 13, 2024 | Partnership with HP to commercialize the system in 2025[15] |
| May 20, 2025 | Renamed Google Beam at Google I/O 2025[1] |
| June 11, 2025 | HP Dimension with Google Beam unveiled at InfoComm 2025[4] |
| September 23, 2026 | Shipping in six countries; Industrious extended network announced[6] |
Technology
Original research system
The 2021 paper by Jason Lawrence, Dan B Goldman and colleagues describes a real-time, two-way system that lets two people "experience a face-to-face conversation" as if they were in the same place. It reproduces stereopsis, motion parallax and spatial audio while keeping eye contact, gestures and body language, with no headset or special glasses.[7][21] Each endstation consisted of a display unit (display, cameras, speakers, microphones, illuminators and computer) and a backlight unit that held an infrared backlight and doubled as a bench seat.[7]
| Component | 2021 research system (per the paper) |
|---|---|
| Display | Head-tracked autostereoscopic lenticular display on a 65-inch 8K panel with 33.1M full-color pixels at 60 Hz; about 45 pixels per degree at the nominal 1.25 m eye-to-display distance |
| 3D capture | Three synchronized stereo RGBD capture pods (two above the display, one below it), each with a 1600x1200 RGB camera and a pair of 1280x1024 monochrome near-infrared cameras; an extra color camera zoomed on the face |
| Depth illumination | Near-infrared dot patterns from 16 diffractive optical element projectors in four banks around the display |
| Face tracking | Four synchronized 1280x1024 monochrome cameras at 120 Hz locating eyes, ears and mouth; measured tracking latency about 33 ms |
| Audio | Four cardioid microphones with beamforming toward the tracked mouth; stereo loudspeakers driven with a head-related transfer function model and the listener's tracked ear positions |
| Transmission | Four color and three depth streams encoded with H.265 and sent with tracked face points over WebRTC; about 30 to 100 Mbit/s |
| Computer | Lenovo P920 PC with four NVIDIA GPUs (two Quadro RTX 6000, two Titan RTX) |
The receiving station renders the three depth streams from the viewer's tracked left and right eye positions with an "image-based fusion" raycasting method, then projects and blends the four color streams onto the fused surface.[7] Because lag in the tracked eye positions causes crosstalk between the left and right views, the team extrapolated the tracked positions to compensate for the roughly 33 ms delay. To limit crosstalk and vergence-accommodation conflict, they placed the remote person's face near the display plane. Because the bottom edge of the display would otherwise clip the remote person's torso and hands, creating a depth conflict with the bezel, they also placed a "middle wall" 0.59 m in front of the screen to hide the display bottom, so that the remote person's hands and legs appear to be just behind it.[7] Rendering each view from the viewer's tracked eye positions is a form of head-coupled perspective.[7]
Commercial system
Google describes Beam as using an AI volumetric video model that converts 2D video streams into 3D, combined with its light field display.[1] On its technology page, Google lists six high-speed cameras embedded in the bezel, a beamforming array of twelve microphones, four speakers that reproduce the location and direction of speech, and lighting harmonization between rooms. It describes the display as a 65-inch 8K light field display that "projects 33.2 million pixels as separate, simultaneous 3D video streams to each eye" at 60 fps.[22] 3D video is used for one-to-one calls between two HP Dimension units; calls with conventional video conferencing on Google Meet or Zoom are shown in 2D.[4][23]
Hardware
The HP Dimension with Google Beam is an all-in-one unit containing cameras, speakers, microphones, compute, LED lighting and the 65-inch display, mounted on a wall or a floor stand. HP's product brief says each unit needs an annual Google Beam license, sold as Google Beam for Meet or Google Beam for Zoom, and a prescriptive curved table sold by MillerKnoll; the Poly TC10 touch controller and two Poly Studio A2 table microphones are ordered separately.[23]
| Specification | HP Dimension with Google Beam |
|---|---|
| Display | 65-inch 8K light field display, 60 fps[22][23] |
| Cameras | Six high-speed cameras in the bezel[22] |
| Audio | 12-microphone beamforming array; four speakers[23] |
| Video apps | Google Meet, Zoom[23] |
| Network | 2x 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports (one with PoE for the TC10 controller); minimum 50 Mbps symmetrical bandwidth at under 100 ms latency to each unit[23] |
| Power | 600 W in an active call, 70 W idle[23] |
| Dimensions | 1725 x 293 x 1137 mm[23] |
| Weight | 119.4 kg (HP product brief, March 2026); Google's technology page lists 254 lb (115.4 kg)[23][22] |
| Management | Google Workspace Admin Console; Zoom Device Management[23] |
| Room | Small room of about 2.7 x 2.7 m to 4.57 x 4.57 m, quiet, climate controlled, out of direct sunlight, with a white wall behind the unit[23] |
| Price | US$24,999 (hardware, announced June 2025)[5] |
Research findings
Google has published several studies comparing Starline with conventional 2D video calls. In the 2021 paper, 117 participants at three sites used the system for their real remote meetings over nine months, holding 308 meetings; over 87% of the 296 survey responses rated it slightly or much better than ordinary video conferencing on presence, attentiveness, reaction-gauging and personal connection. A controlled within-subjects experiment with 25 participants found significantly higher ratings for presence, attentiveness, personal connection, engagement, closeness and eye contact, and significantly more hand gestures, head nods and eyebrow movements. Asked afterwards to write down what they remembered, participants wrote more words after a Starline conversation, which the authors read as roughly 28% more recalled meeting content (p = .053).[7]
In April 2023 Google researchers Greg Blascovich and Eric Gomez summarized further studies, some published for the first time as preliminary findings.[24]
| Measure | Result reported for Starline versus 2D video conferencing |
|---|---|
| Turn-taking | About 2-3 more speaker hand-offs in a two-minute sample[24] |
| Nonverbal behavior | Hand gestures +43%, head nods +26%, eyebrow movements +49%[24] |
| Information retention | 28% more written (by character count)[24] |
| Video meeting fatigue | 31% lower on the Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue (ZEF) Scale; 12% faster reaction times[24] |
| Visual attention | 14% more time looking at the partner's face, similar to the in-person condition[24] |
| Internal pilot | Over 87% of participants rated Starline meetings better than traditional video conferencing[24] |
HP's product brief for the HP Dimension cites 39% more non-verbal behaviors, 14% more focus on the meeting partner, a 28% increase in information retention and 37% more turn taking, attributing them to Google Beam behavioral research from April 2023.[23] In September 2026 Google reported an eight-week internal study in which teams using Beam felt 50% more connected, found it 33% easier to make sure their feedback was understood, and needed 21% fewer follow-up meetings.[6]
Relationship to VR and AR
Starline's designers explained their choice of a screen over a head-mounted display. They cited the weight and discomfort of most AR and VR headsets and the difficulty of capturing a face through a headset. They also noted that most widely available VR headsets had an angular resolution below 20 pixels per degree and that no available AR headset had a field of view wide enough for a seated person's torso, while their display gives about 45 pixels per degree.[7] The 2021 study measured presence (a sense of "being there" with the meeting partner) as one of its main outcomes, and Google calls the model behind Beam's 3D rendering an "AI volumetric video model"; its website describes Beam calls as volumetric video and audio.[7][1][22]
Whether the display is a light field display in the strict sense has been questioned. In 2021 Road to VR noted that it was unclear whether it supports both vergence and accommodation, as a true light field display would, or whether it is a 3D display driven by eye tracking. Citing a preview in Wired in which reporter Lauren Goode wrote that moving "just a few inches" to the side made the illusion of volume disappear, Road to VR suggested the display has a relatively small eye box.[2] The 2021 paper describes the display as a head-tracked autostereoscopic lenticular display.[7]
Reception
TechCrunch's Brian Heater, writing after a seven-minute demonstration of the 2023 prototype, called the image "a convincing hologram", with roughly the same lag as a 2D Zoom call, but noticed subtle movement on parts of the subject's skin, which a member of the Starline team called "artifacts": places where the system did not quite render the person correctly. He considered the system "overkill" for most people in its current form.[13] Road to VR's 2021 coverage called the reconstruction "remarkably high resolution" while noting visible artifacts.[2] Writing about the HP Dimension, Engadget recalled that during an earlier demonstration a person on the other end holding out an apple looked so realistic "that it felt like we could reach out and grab the fruit".[19] In its 2025 report on the renaming, TechCrunch questioned how much demand there would be as many businesses moved back to fully in-office work, and suggested that some customers might justify Beam for office-to-office conferences alone.[17]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Andrew Nartker (2025-05-20). "Google Beam: Our AI-first 3D video communication platform". The Keyword. Google. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/project-starline-google-beam-update/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Ben Lang (2021-05-20). "Google's Project Starline is a Light-field Display System for Immersive Video Calls". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/googles-project-starline-is-a-light-field-display-for-immersive-video-calls/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Clay Bavor (2021-05-18). "Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together". The Keyword. Google. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/project-starline/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "HP Dimension with Google Beam Takes Virtual Collaboration to the Next Level at InfoComm 2025". HP Newsroom. HP Inc.. 2025-06-11. https://www.hp.com/us-en/newsroom/press-releases/2025/hp-dimension-with-google-beam-at-infocomm-2025.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Abner Li (2025-06-11). "The first Google Beam device is the $24,999 HP Dimension". 9to5Google. https://9to5google.com/2025/06/11/hp-dimension-with-google-beam/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Aaron Luber (2026-09-23). "Google Beam expands with new regions, partners, and customers". The Keyword. Google. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/google-beam-expansion/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 7.00 7.01 7.02 7.03 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7.09 7.10 7.11 Jason Lawrence, Dan B Goldman, Supreeth Achar, Gregory Major Blascovich, Joseph G. Desloge, Tommy Fortes, Eric M. Gomez, Sascha Häberling, Hugues Hoppe, Andy Huibers, Claude Knaus, Brian Kuschak, Ricardo Martin-Brualla, Harris Nover, Andrew Ian Russell, Steven M. Seitz, Kevin Tong (2021-12). "Project Starline: A high-fidelity telepresence system". ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 40, no. 6, article 242 (Proc. SIGGRAPH Asia 2021). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3478513.3480490. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Sarah Perez (2021-11-11). "Google reorg moves AR, VR, Starline and Area 120 into new 'Labs' team". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/11/google-reorg-moves-ar-vr-starline-and-area-120-into-new-labs-team-reporting-directly-to-sundar-pichai/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Andrew Nartker (2022-10-11). "Project Starline expands testing through an early access program". The Keyword. Google. https://blog.google/technology/research/project-starline-expands-testing/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ Sarah Perez (2022-10-13). "Google's 3D video calling booths, Project Starline, will now be tested in the real world". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/13/googles-3d-video-calling-booths-project-starline-will-now-be-tested-in-the-real-world/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Andrew Nartker (2023-05-10). "A first look at Project Starline's new, simpler prototype". The Keyword. Google. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/project-starline-prototype/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ Ben Lang (2023-05-16). "Google Reveals Latest Project Starline Prototype, Its Light-field Telepresence Platform". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/google-project-starline-latest-prototype-telepresence-io-2023/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Brian Heater (2023-05-11). "Project Starline is the coolest work call you'll ever take". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/11/project-starline-is-the-coolest-work-call-youll-ever-take/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ Jason Lawrence, Ryan Overbeck, Todd Prives, Tommy Fortes, Nikki Roth, Brett Newman (2024-07-13). "Project Starline: A high-fidelity telepresence system". ACM SIGGRAPH 2024 Emerging Technologies. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3641517.3664381. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Andrew Nartker (2024-05-13). "Bringing Project Starline out of the lab". The Keyword. Google. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/google-project-starline-hp-partnership/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ Guy Campos (2024-05-14). "Google partners with HP on Starline 3D videoconferencing". AV Magazine. https://www.avinteractive.com/news/collaboration/google-partners-with-hp-on-starline-3d-videoconferencing-14-05-2024/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Kyle Wiggers (2025-05-20). "Google's 3D teleconferencing platform, now called Beam, will ship later in 2025". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/20/googles-3d-teleconferencing-platform-now-called-beam-will-ship-later-in-2025/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "Control Speech Translation in Google Meet for your users". Google Workspace Updates. Google. 2026-01-07. https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2026/01/control-speech-translation-in-meet.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Lawrence Bonk (2025-06-11). "The first Google Beam device is the $25,000 HP Dimension". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/the-first-google-beam-device-is-the-25000-hp-dimension-120016865.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ Carles Farré (2026-09-23). "HP Dimension with Google Beam Brings Human Connection into Sharper Focus". HP Newsroom. HP Inc.. https://www.hp.com/us-en/newsroom/blogs/2026/hp-dimension-with-google-beam-brings-human-connection-into-sharper-focus.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "Project Starline: A High-Fidelity Telepresence System". Google Research. Google. 2021. https://research.google/pubs/project-starline-a-high-fidelity-telepresence-system/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 "Google Beam - A magic window to real connection". Google Beam. Google. https://beam.google/intl/en_ca/technology/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 23.00 23.01 23.02 23.03 23.04 23.05 23.06 23.07 23.08 23.09 23.10 23.11 "HP Dimension with Google Beam Product Brief". HP. HP Development Company. 2026-03. https://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=c09181708. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 24.4 24.5 24.6 Greg Blascovich, Eric Gomez (2023-04-06). "How Project Starline improves remote communication". Google Research Blog. Google. https://research.google/blog/how-project-starline-improves-remote-communication/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.