What's new in Cosmos Video

A meeting tool only has to behave for 45 minutes. Cosmos sits open all day, next to everything else on your machine, so heavy was never an option.

Every quarter we test it the hard way: real machines, every browser we support, and 150 bots from 15 regions trying to break it. The July run is done and every fix is live.

🏆 Lighter than Google Meet, Zoom and Teams

You'd assume a video call is a video call. We checked.

Same laptop, same five-person call, everyone's camera on. Cosmos asked less of the machine than Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Less CPU and less GPU, not one at the expense of the other.

⚡ Three times lighter than we were

Same test, same machines, 16 months apart.

💡 Mac numbers look bigger than they are. macOS counts one core, not the whole machine, so divide by your core count.

📊 Big calls run lighter than you'd think

A 90-person all-hands asks about as much of your laptop as a 20-person team call. Your machine only draws the faces on your screen, not everyone in the room, so the load stops climbing once your gallery is full.

• 20 people — about 4% of your CPU
• 90 people — about 6% of your CPU
• Sitting in Cosmos all day — about 1.5%

If your machine ever feels slow, turn your gallery down. Showing 12 faces instead of 24 means fewer videos to draw, and Cosmos asks less of your laptop straight away.

🔍 How we keep it that way

Every run works the same way: same machines, same scenarios, everyday actions repeated 5, 10 and 30 times until something gives. We fix what it finds, then run it again to prove it held.

Read everything we fixed in July.

None of this comes from a clever rewrite. It is a consistent method: we show up quarter after quarter and ask the same question, can we do this with fewer resources? Here is how we test.

A status is only as useful as your team's ability to read it. “Away” could mean anything. “Having food, back in 30” tells them exactly what's happening.

So we built preset statuses: one shared set of words for your whole team to work from, flexible enough to fit the way your team actually works.

🏷️ Presets your whole team shares

An admin sets them up once and everyone in the space gets them, so the team works from the same handful of statuses. You can still write your own custom status whenever you like. The presets are simply there, one click away, because setting a status should be as easy as possible.

Here's ours, in all its glory:

You might not know what clauding-clauding means, but everyone on our team knows exactly what I'm up to and how to engage with me.

• One tap sets all of it — your availability, the emoji, the wording and the timer
• How to setup: Admins can “add preset status” through the status setter

💬 Improved status panel

Now works with the keyboard, and built to get out of your way.

⚡ Other platform improvements

• The Windows app now appears in your notification settings, so you can give it permission and actually get your notifications
• Personal rooms now take the right name when you claim one

Two complaints kept landing in our inbox: “nobody could hear me over the building work”, and “I sounded like a robot”. Both were about our noise cancellation, and both were fair. So we improved Cosmos noise cancellation.

🎙️ Now you have three ways to noise cancel

Pick the one that suits your room and your mic.

• Cosmos Balanced — clears background noise and stays light on your machine. Start here.
• Cosmos Aggressive — for the genuinely loud stuff. Stronger, and a little more processed.
• Browser noise cancellation — your browser's own cleanup. The lightest option, works everywhere.
• How to use: Settings › Audio › Noise cancellation. It stays off until you pick one, so go and choose.

And Unedited audio cleans up nothing at all, for music sessions and streaming.

💡 Works on the desktop apps and every browser we support: Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Brave.

🎧 Hear yourself the way everyone else does

No more guessing whether it's working.

• Record a sample — play it back and hear exactly what your team hears
• Input level monitor — tells you when you're too quiet, or not picking up at all
• Noise gate — push it higher and the constant background hum disappears

🎵 Music sounding flat on your AirPods?

Bluetooth headphones drop to low-quality audio whenever they're holding your mic open. Turn on Bluetooth music mode under Settings › Audio, and Cosmos releases the mic while you're muted so your music plays at full quality. Unmuting then takes two to three seconds.

⚡ Performance and reliability

• Input volume now adjusts automatically, or by hand if you prefer
• Fixed a memory leak when switching noise cancellation on and off
• Fixed your camera muting when someone joined a call, caused by a switch between the AV1 and VP9 codecs
• More reliable calls, so you can see and hear everyone properly

It's been a while — we've been quietly shipping. Cosmos now runs 3x lighter on your machine, the browser popout is rebuilt for the way you actually work, and your team can build a space that feels like theirs.

⚡ 3x lighter when you're not in a call

Keep Cosmos open all day without it eating into your browser or battery.

💡 Measured on a deliberately low-end $175 laptop (Intel Celeron N4500, 8GB RAM) — real-world kit, not a gaming rig.

🖥️ Browser popout, rebuilt for how you actually work

Pair, cowork, present — without losing team videos. When using Cosmos in Chrome, the experience used to drop the moment you switched tabs. Not anymore.

• Resizable, properly organised video — videos in a clean vertical stack, sized to fit your screen.
• Every control where you are — mic, camera, raised hand, home desk, and status. No tab-switching mid-conversation.
• Auto-starts on screenshare — present and keep your team in view. On dual monitors? Hover the screenshare button to disable, or pop it back in from the top-right.

🎨 Design a space that feels like yours

Everyone we talk to wants a Cosmos that looks like their own. Now your team can build one using our simple floor plan builder — no handholding required.

• Minimal or vibrant themes — clean and professional, or colourful and playful. Build either.
• Rooms that reflect your team — personal desks, meeting rooms, focus rooms, game rooms, and spatial areas. Name them after the people and projects that actually live there.
• Text and images in the space — team names, project labels, birthday shout-outs. Your choice of font, size, and colour.

How to use: Space dropdown › Floor Plan. Personalise via Space dropdown › Personalise Space.

A couple more things

• Double-click to move is back — if single-click has you jumping across the map by mistake, turn it on at User Preferences › Advanced › Navigation Options.
• Whiteboard and Cosmos Hours are retiring — both are underused and there are stronger dedicated tools for each. We're a small team, and focus matters.

We've shipped major updates based on your feedback. Cosmos now supports different room experiences beyond spatial areas and meeting rooms:

Personal Rooms — your own desk in Cosmos

• Claim any meeting room as yours (Bottom right > "Set Home")
• Spawn there automatically when joining
• One-click return from anywhere ("Home" button)

Coming soon: Access controls (walk-in/knock/do not disturb)

Focus Rooms — library-style silent co-working

• Cameras on, mics disabled
• Everyone shares their work status
• Perfect for accountability and deep work

To change room type: Click room card > Details > Select room type

Control Cosmos with keyboard

• CMD+K: Universal command bar — type any action
• /: View all keyboard shortcuts

User experience

• Each room type has its own toolbar designed for that specific experience
• All buttons now labelled — no mystery icons

Interactions

• Single click to move, and hover to see where you'll move
• Quick action cards for people and rooms
• Sidebar shows all active rooms

Imagine running a workshop where everyone's working on the same Miro board without screen sharing. That's exactly what you can do in Cosmos now.

🔗 Embed apps for seamless collaboration

Launch collaborative apps like Figma, Miro, Google Docs or any tool directly inside your call. Everyone sees and interacts with the same content in real-time — no more "can you see my screen?" moments.

• Launch apps with one click and they open for everyone instantly
• Co-edit documents, whiteboards and designs together in real-time
• Watch YouTube videos with perfectly synchronised playback
• Bookmark your most-used apps for instant access
• Set apps to auto-launch when anyone enters a room — perfect for onboarding videos or essential documents

To get started: Click the Apps icon in your toolbar, add any publicly accessible link, and select "Open for all".

🎤 AI noise cancellation

We've completely rebuilt our noise cancellation from the ground up. Your voice comes through with remarkable clarity whilst keyboard clicks, background chatter and ambient noise simply vanish.

Turn it on: Click the arrow next to your mic icon and toggle Active Noise Cancellation. Pro tip: for best quality with Bluetooth headphones, set your mic to laptop and speaker to headphones.

🎨 Custom video backgrounds

Stay professional on every call whilst keeping your privacy. Choose from our curated backgrounds or upload your own. Team admins can even share branded backgrounds across the workspace for polished client presentations.

Set it up: Go to User Preferences › Audio & Video › Upload your image. Choose whether to keep it personal or share with your entire space.

The moment you've all been waiting for has arrived! Starting breakouts during workshops, team sessions, and collaborative meetings has just got ridiculously easy in Cosmos.

Here's the magic:

1. Click Breakouts in your toolbar (visible for admins & members of space).
2. Set your group size and duration.
3. Hit Start and watch Cosmos do the rest.

No more herding participants into rooms. No more explaining how to navigate. No more coordination chaos. Cosmos automatically creates groups and whisks everyone off to the nearest available rooms.

Want more control? We've got you:

• Manual assignment: Handpick who goes where, or shuffle people mid-session
• Room selection: Choose exactly which meeting rooms to use
• Live announcements: Broadcast messages to specific groups or everyone at once
• One-click return: Instantly bring the entire group back to the main room

You can now easily run breakouts to spice up your workshops, meetings, and teaching sessions.

We're thrilled to announce the launch of the Cosmos Space Builder! We've heard countless requests from users wanting to create a space that feels like their home from the very start, and finally, we've been able to deliver it.

🌟 Create spaces that work for YOU

Cosmos spaces act as a glue for your sessions or workflows. Now you have complete control. Whether you're running team meetings, online co-working, hosting workshops, or delivering online lectures for students, you can now craft the right space for your needs.

🔧 To access the builder

1. Go to your Cosmos space
2. Click on "Floorplan" from the top left Space dropdown
3. Choose "Build your own space"

🎨 Bring your vision to life

The builder lets you edit one of the spaces from our library or design a space right from the start. You'll be able to build colourful spaces with all our preloaded assets.

📚 Getting started

• How to use the Space Builder — Learn the basics
• Creating the Perfect Space for Your Remote Team — Ideal for online co-working
• Creating the Perfect Cosmos Space for Your Students — Ideal for online learning or group tuition

💪 Build with confidence

• Publish spaces with 1-click: Changes apply instantly — nobody needs to refresh
• Simple interface: Easy to understand and use, no design experience required
• Make it your own: Reflect your personality and team culture through your space

Ready to create your own space? Do give Cosmos Space Builder a spin. We welcome your feedback — we'll quickly iterate and improve as we always do.

We've shipped a truckload of features to Cosmos that unlock new possibilities. Here's what's new.

👨‍🏫 Large meetings for all-hands & teaching

Run large sessions with crystal-clear audio, focused attention on speakers, and interactive audience engagement.

• Support for up to 200 participants with 30% less bandwidth usage thanks to VP9 encoding
• Noise cancellation to automatically remove background noise
• Active speaker mode to highlight whoever is speaking — perfect for webinars and podcasts
• Share a second camera during calls — ideal for music teachers showcasing instruments or product demonstrations
• Polls in meetings for real-time audience feedback
• Firefox improvements supporting up to 125 participants with annotations on screen-share
• Reactions are less jarring with options to turn off sounds (user settings > advanced)

🏢 Team collaboration

Get straight to work with minimal friction and improved messaging.

• Home — join your preferred desk instantly in listening mode and skip the space landing
• Threads section to see all active threads with updates and to carry the conversation
• Deep-linking notifications that take you directly to specific messages across all platforms
• See what's happening in the space when in Focusing or Away statuses

📊 Better insights for admins

Understand how your team uses Cosmos, and the value it creates.

• Space utilisation charts to understand peak usage times
• Value metrics to see what benefits Cosmos brings to your team
• Activity patterns to help identify optimal times for formal co-working sessions

Kicking off 2025 with improvements to make Cosmos video calls more powerful & intuitive.

🧭 Space & call switch

Two-tab view to simplify navigation, especially for first-time users.

• Space view: Navigate the space, create breakout groups, or return to your desk
• Call view: Focus on gallery view with enhanced pinning and spotlighting options

🌟 Spotlight mode

• Admins and members can now pin videos for everyone in calls
• Recordings follow spotlighted videos with improved layout & UX

📍 Home location

Set your preferred place in Cosmos as Home, whether it's a private room or a co-working desk. You can return to your place anytime by clicking the "Home" button in the space tab.

🛠️ Space Builder beta

Want early access to create fully custom spaces? Sign up for our beta and help us polish the space builder functionality before we release it to all users.

✨ Polish & improvements

• Google Calendar Add-On: Now re-verified on Google App Marketplace
• Game fixes: Resolved disconnection issues at game tables
• Call toolbar with apps open: Stays visible during games/apps
• Coming soon: Notification sounds and deep linking for apps/desktop

After a strong 2024, we're excited to continue enhancing Cosmos with your input. Here's to creating the best digital spaces for connecting, collaborating, and learning!