A look at Google's Project Starline 3D video chat booths, as Google starts installing them for select partners, including Salesforce, WeWork, and T-Mobile
Project Starline is the real deal. It makes a virtual call feel like a one-on-one conversation. But it's unclear if it's something most people will ever get to experience.
Context & Ripple Effects
Project Starline has moved from lab curiosity to physical deployments: after the 2021 early look at the 65-inch sensor-packed booth, Google is now installing units at Salesforce, WeWork, and T-Mobile — the first time outside companies will sit across from the thing rather than watch a demo.
The install news matters because it sets up everything that follows in this coverage thread: within months Google reported shrinking the tech from booth to large-TV form factor (the shrink announcement), and by 2024 it had lined up HP to ship Starline commercially in 2025 with Zoom and Meet support (the HP partnership). These partner installations are the proving ground that made a shippable product plausible.
First-order effects
- Salesforce, WeWork, and T-Mobile become the first enterprises running Starline in real offices, giving Google actual usage data on whether the 'feels like sitting across from someone' effect survives daily corporate use.
- Google converts Starline from an internal prototype into a fielded enterprise pilot, forcing it to solve installation, calibration, and support logistics it never faced when the booth lived in its own labs.
Second-order effects
- The pilot program creates the demand signal that pulls in a hardware partner — HP's eventual role shipping Starline in 2025 exists because these first installations demonstrated enterprises would host the hardware.
- Zoom and Microsoft face pressure at the premium end of video conferencing: once Starline supports Zoom and Meet, the question becomes whether incumbent platforms must offer a 3D-presence tier or cede the high-value executive-meeting segment to Google's hardware.
Third-order effects
- If the HP-shipped product finds buyers, video conferencing structurally splits into two tiers — commodity flat-grid calls on existing tools and a premium 3D-presence hardware market where Google owns both the stack and the OEM channel.
- The decade-long arc here, from the rumored GMeet tool in 2015 through Starline's commercialization, points toward Google treating telepresence as a long-horizon infrastructure bet rather than a feature, with each hardware generation lowering the cost of entry for the next set of customers.
The trend: Enterprise video conferencing is bifurcating into commodity software calls and premium 3D-presence hardware, with Google moving Starline from research demo to OEM-shipped product on the strength of early partner installations.