Short answer: Google Meet doesn't translate meetings. Its live captions transcribe whatever language is being spoken — they don't turn Japanese into English for the person who needs English. To get real-time translated captions, where each participant reads the conversation in their own language, you add a translation bot to the call.
Here's the fastest way to do it, what Google Meet can and can't do on its own, and what to check before you rely on it in a real meeting.
The 30-second setup
There's no extension to install and no app to download. You invite the bot the same way you'd invite a colleague:
- Add
bot@sageio.netto your Google Meet calendar invite. It joins automatically the moment the meeting starts — nobody has to admit it. - Everyone speaks their own language. Each participant picks the language their captions appear in. Translated captions show up in about two seconds, so the conversation keeps its rhythm.
- Get the summary afterward. When the meeting ends, a searchable transcript and an AI summary land within about five minutes. The host controls who they're shared with.
That's the whole flow. The hard part — translating live speech across languages without breaking the pace of the meeting — happens in the background.
Why Google Meet's built-in captions aren't translation
This trips people up, so it's worth being precise. Google Meet has had live captions for years, and it has been rolling out "translated captions" on some paid tiers — but both have real limits for a genuinely multilingual meeting:
- Live captions transcribe, they don't translate. If someone speaks Japanese, the caption is Japanese. Useful for a recap; useless for the person who only reads English.
- Translated captions, where available, are restricted by plan, by language pairs, and by the fact that everyone in the meeting effectively shares one caption configuration — they're not built for four people each reading a different language at once.
If your meeting is everyone-speaks-English-but-one, the built-in captions are fine. If your meeting is genuinely cross-language — say a standup with people in Taipei, Tokyo, Berlin, and London — you need a tool whose entire job is per-person, real-time translation.
What "real-time" actually means here
Two things matter:
- Latency. Captions appear in roughly two seconds. That's fast enough that people stop waiting for a human interpreter and just talk.
- Per-participant language. Nobody has to agree on a shared meeting language. The person in Hanoi reads Vietnamese; the person in Seoul reads Korean — at the same time, from the same conversation.
That second point is the one most tools miss. Translation isn't a single setting on the meeting; it's a personal setting for each listener.
Languages — and why Asian languages specifically matter
Sageio translates into 20+ languages, and it treats Asian languages as first-class, not as an afterthought bolted onto a European-first engine. In practice that means Traditional Chinese isn't quietly served as Simplified, Cantonese isn't routed through a Mandarin model, and Thai and Vietnamese keep their diacritics intact.
If your team includes anyone whose first language is one of these, that difference shows up the moment they read the captions — the wrong word choice in Taiwanese Chinese reads the way a comma splice reads in English.
Is it private?
For meeting content, this is the first question a sensible buyer asks. Two things to know:
- Your meetings are not used to train AI models — and the underlying AI vendors are contractually restricted from doing so either.
- Audio is processed in memory and discarded. Only the text transcript and summary are kept, encrypted, in the region you choose (US, EU, or APAC). Enterprise customers can self-host the whole stack, so nothing leaves their own servers.
What about Zoom and Microsoft Teams?
Today Sageio joins Google Meet. Zoom and Microsoft Teams support is coming soon. If those platforms are critical for your rollout, it's worth saying so on the contact form — it helps us prioritise.
Frequently asked questions
Can Google Meet translate a meeting in real time on its own? Not in the way most multilingual teams need. Its live captions transcribe the spoken language; its translated-captions feature is limited by plan and isn't built for several people each reading a different language at once. A dedicated translation bot handles that.
How do I add real-time translation to Google Meet?
Add bot@sageio.net to the calendar invite. It joins automatically and gives each participant translated captions in the language they choose. No extension or install.
How fast are the translated captions? About two seconds — fast enough to keep a live conversation flowing.
Does it cost anything to try? Every plan starts with a free 60-minute trial, no credit card required. After that, Professional is $49/month and Teams is $99 per seat/month; Enterprise is custom.
If your meetings are already multilingual, the fastest way to feel the difference is to run one real meeting with it. Add the bot to your next cross-language call and watch what happens to the parts of the conversation people usually let slide.