Summary
Google says Beam units are shipping to customers in six countries, supported by 18 channel partners. From October, select Industrious locations in four US cities will offer bookings for the HP Dimension with Google Beam system.
Google says its Beam meeting system is shipping to customers in six countries, backed by 18 channel partners. The company is also partnering with flexible-workspace operator Industrious to make the system bookable at selected US locations from October.
Beam is being offered as HP Dimension with Google Beam. Google says the hardware works with both Google Meet and Zoom, allowing organisations to use it with either meeting platform. The company positions the system as a way to make remote conversations feel more like in-person meetings.
Where Beam is expanding
The six countries named for the rollout are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan. Google says its 18 channel partners are equipped to deploy and support Beam. It did not list those partners in the announcement.
The Industrious partnership is intended to let organisations use Beam without having to install it at their own offices. After an earlier pilot, bookings are due to open from October at selected Industrious locations in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City and Palo Alto. Google says teams used the pilot for activities including manager check-ins, interviews and client consultations.
Google also names Bain & Company, Netflix and Capital Group among its early customers or partners. Earlier this year, Bain and Google tested the system for campus recruiting and candidate interviews. Google says the arrangement let Bain interview candidates remotely while reducing the need for extensive travel.
What Google’s internal study found
Google reports that an eight-week internal study found teams using Beam felt 50% more connected to one another, found it 33% easier to ensure feedback was clearly understood, and had a 21% drop in the need for follow-up meetings. The company says the results have informed plans to expand Beam use among its own employees as well as customers.
These figures describe Google’s internal study, rather than a published independent evaluation. The announcement does not give the number of participants or details of the study design, so the reported changes are best understood as results from Google’s own workplace testing, not as a general estimate for all organisations.
The expansion adds both a route for enterprise customers to obtain the system and a way to book it through selected shared workspaces. Whether that access makes Beam practical for a wider range of teams will depend on their needs and on the locations available to them.