About twenty years ago I met Paul Greenberg, Ray Wang, and Tatyana Kanzaveli at a Cisco event where the company was showing TelePresence. Kanzaveli was on the Cisco TelePresence team. Greenberg and Wang were there as analysts. The people on the screens looked as if they were sitting in the room with us.
In those days the room was for global teams that needed a better way to talk than a phone call or a standard conference-room device. Video calling was not an ordinary work tool. Cisco introduced TelePresence in October 2006. The TelePresence 1000, built for one or two people, listed at $79,000. The TelePresence 3000, built for up to six, listed at $299,000. Both ran on the customer network, and Cisco said there was no monthly operating fee on top of the hardware (ZDNET, 2006). Eye contact, full size, and a table that lined up with the table on the other side were the product.
Google is now shipping that kind of room again, with HP as the hardware partner. The product is HP Dimension with Google Beam.
HP Dimension shows the other person at life size
Google started the work as Project Starline and renamed it Google Beam on May 20, 2025. Andrew Nartker, general manager of Google Beam, said the platform would reach select customers later that year through HP and Zoom (Google, 2025). On June 11, 2025 HP announced Dimension with Google Beam at a U.S. list price of $24,999, with the Beam license sold separately (9to5Google, 2025).
The unit is a 65-inch light-field display. Six cameras in the bezel capture the person from different angles so the other side sees depth. HP also builds in lighting, a microphone array, and speakers so the voice comes from the person on the screen. No glasses. The 3D call is one person to one person. The same box can join an ordinary two-dimensional group meeting, and coverage of the launch said it can interoperate with Microsoft Teams and Webex as well as native Google Meet and Zoom Rooms (9to5Google, 2025).
On September 23, 2026 Aaron Luber, director of business development for Google Beam, wrote that units are shipping in six countries, with 18 channel partners able to install and support them. Named early customers include Bain & Company, Netflix, and Capital Group. Bain used the rooms for campus recruiting interviews so a candidate did not have to travel for that conversation (Google, 2026).
Google says an internal study found fewer follow-up meetings
In an eight-week internal study, Google says teams using Beam felt 50 percent more connected, found it 33 percent easier to make feedback understood, and saw a 21 percent drop in the need for a follow-up meeting (Google, 2026). When HP priced the box, Google says earlier testing found 28 percent better memory recall, 14 percent more time looking at the other person's face, and 39 percent more nonverbal cues than a traditional video call (9to5Google, 2025).
A buyer cannot yet check those figures against a customer case with a named baseline and a named sample size. The license price is also unpublished, so the $24,999 figure is the hardware list, not the cost of a working pair of rooms.
Industrious lets a team book the room in October
Google and Industrious are opening what Google calls the first Beam extended network. Starting in October, a team can book HP Dimension with Google Beam at Industrious locations in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, and Palo Alto. A pilot this year used the rooms for manager check-ins, interviews, and client consultations (Google, 2026). Google did not publish a room count or a booking price.
That rental path is the practical difference from the Cisco rooms I saw. In 2006 the way to judge TelePresence was to attend a launch or buy a six-figure system. In October a manager can book an hour in four cities and decide whether eye contact on a light-field screen changes the meeting enough to justify two owned units.
Ask facilities and the meeting owner which conversations still fail on a laptop: a final-round interview, a customer escalation, a one-to-one with a remote manager. Book an Industrious room in October before you ask HP for a quote. Get the license price in writing, and confirm the other site will have a matching unit, because a 3D call needs both ends.
Works Cited
Google. "Google Beam: Our AI-First 3D Video Communication Platform." The Keyword, 20 May 2025, blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/project-starline-google-beam-update/.
Google. "Google Beam Expands with New Regions, Partners, and Customers." The Keyword, 23 Sep. 2026, blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/google-beam-expansion/.
Li, Abner. "The First Google Beam Device Is the $24,999 HP Dimension." 9to5Google, 11 June 2025, 9to5google.com/2025/06/11/hp-dimension-with-google-beam/.
Tan, Lynn. "Cisco Brings Videoconferencing to 'Life'." ZDNET, 30 Oct. 2006, zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/cisco-brings-videoconferencing-to-life/.
