HP Dimension with Google Beam: Teams 2D Limits, 3D Meet/Zoom and Buying Guide

For Windows shops that run on Microsoft Teams, the real question is how Beam fits into a meeting stack it wasn't built around. The short answer: it fits, with limits. The 3D experience belongs to Google Meet and Zoom. Teams and Webex get a standard 2D connection.

What was announced​

The September 23 announcement makes the system easier to buy. It is not a consumer launch. The key points:

• Six countries. Google says Beam units are shipping to customers in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany and Japan.
• 18 channel partners. Google says these partners are equipped to deploy and support the system.
• Named customers. Google lists Netflix and Capital Group among its first customers. Bain & Company piloted the system earlier this year for campus recruiting and candidate interviews.
• A place to try it first. Google is partnering with flexible-workspace operator Industrious on what it calls the first Beam "extended network." From October, businesses can book HP Dimension with Google Beam at selected Industrious locations in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City and Palo Alto. Google hasn't published booking prices or said whether all four sites open at the same time.

The pilot-first option is probably the most useful part of the news for IT buyers. A company can let a hiring manager or sales lead use the system for a few weeks before committing floor space, cabling and a budget line.

Summary: More countries, more resellers, a way to try before buying, and a few well-known customer names.

What the hardware actually is​

Google Beam is the commercial version of Project Starline. HP Dimension is the hardware that runs it. Cameras capture you from several angles, AI combines those views into a near life-size 3D image, and a light-field display shows it to the other person with depth, all without a headset or glasses.

The spec sheet has changed since launch. At InfoComm 2025, HP described the system as combining a breakthrough 3D light field display, adaptive lighting, six-camera capture, spatial audio, and AI. HP's current product page lists:

• Seven cameras
• A 65-inch light-field display
• A 12-microphone beamforming array with AI noise cancellation
• Four speakers for spatial audio

Some current coverage still repeats the six-camera figure. The official product page says seven.

The fine print matters more. A footnote on HP's product page says the 3D video is for one-to-one conversations only. Google's help documentation agrees: 3D Beam meetings only happen between two Beam rooms.

The Teams question​

This is the part Windows-centric IT teams need to read carefully.

HP's original launch materials said the system would provide a native Zoom Rooms or Google Meet experience and support three functions: 3D immersive one-on-one communications, 2D traditional group meetings, and meeting interoperability with cloud-based video services such as Teams and Webex. AV Magazine's coverage of the September rollout repeats this: the system supports native Google Meet and Zoom Rooms meetings, as well as interoperability with Microsoft Teams and Webex.

In practice, the split looks like this:

Integrator RoomReady puts it plainly: the system supports 3D one-to-one sessions with Zoom or Google Meet platforms, and supports traditional 2D calls on Webex and Microsoft Teams. In May, UC Today reported on an experimental group mode for Meet and Zoom, and noted that the 3D group rendering does not yet extend to those platforms, meaning Teams and Webex.

So if your company runs on Teams, a Beam room can still join your Teams meetings as a very large, very expensive 2D endpoint. The 3D experience you're paying for needs Meet or Zoom on both ends. Neither of Google's two license types, "Google Beam for Meet" or "Google Beam for Zoom", is a Teams license.

Summary: Teams works in 2D. For 3D, you need Meet or Zoom, plus a Beam room at the other end.

Buying it is not like buying a display​

Google's Workspace admin documentation shows a procurement process that looks more like enterprise licensing than an AV purchase.

Prerequisites Google lists:

• A Google Workspace edition of at least Enterprise Standard, with a verified domain
• The reseller's customer ID
• Your Zoom account number, if you're buying Beam for Zoom

Purchase flow, per Google's documentation:

1. Buy hardware and software together: one Beam software license per HP Dimension device. Sales go only through HP Amplify resellers.
2. Choose a primary reseller for the first software purchase. That reseller handles subscriptions and renewals for the whole organization.
3. A Workspace super administrator grants purchase consent in the Google Admin console under Menu > Account > Reseller management. They enter the reseller's customer ID, pick Beam for Meet or Beam for Zoom, and click Create Purchase Consent.
4. After the reseller completes the order, an admin signs in to the Admin console and accepts the Beam Enterprise License Agreement, the Google Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy. This activates the subscription, and it has to happen before devices are enrolled. For Beam for Zoom, activation also makes Zoom Rooms for Google Beam licenses available in the Zoom web portal.
5. Review Google's Room and Deployment Readiness Guide, schedule delivery and installation with the reseller, and make sure you or your AV integrator have a Workspace admin account that can enroll devices.

Some details worth knowing:

• You can have only one authorized software reseller per Beam license type at a time, but you can buy the hardware from several regional resellers.
• Licenses added mid-term are co-termed to your existing end date and charged on a prorated basis.
• Billing comes from the reseller, separate from any other Google subscriptions.
• Google's support guidance puts technical support with the distributor or reseller that sold the device, not with Google.

One point for Microsoft-first organizations: even if you only plan to use Beam for Zoom, the purchase process still runs through a Google Workspace tenant with Enterprise Standard or higher. Check that requirement early, before anyone gets attached to the demo.

On cost, AV Magazine says the system was launched at InfoComm 2025 at a cost of 24,999. Neither the announcement nor Google's buying guide lists current prices, and the hardware and software license are sold as a pair. Get a full quote that includes the license, installation and room preparation.

Living with it: the daily limits​

Google's help documentation for Beam for Meet adds some practical details:

• Stay in position. Sit centered at the table, don't let a laptop block the cameras, and don't lean forward or back by more than about an arm's length.
• Laptop joins break the 3D session. If someone joins from a laptop without Companion mode, the meeting switches to a standard 2D Meet call to fit a third participant. To get 3D back, both people need to leave and rejoin.
• Presenting has conditions. You can share a tab, window or full screen through Companion mode (via the calendar invite's "Use Companion mode" option, or a Google short link). Shared content appears next to you while you stay life-size. You can't play audio from shared content, present from an instant meeting (a calendar invite is required), use self-view or picture-in-picture, or pin a second window.

Expect helpdesk tickets that start with "why did my 3D call go flat?"

The research: interesting, but vendor-run​

HP's announcement cites Google research. It's worth knowing where those numbers come from.

Google's April 2023 Project Starline research blog reported lab studies with roughly 20 to 30 participants each. Compared with traditional video calls, participants showed:

• 39% more nonverbal behavior
• 28% more information recalled, measured by how much they wrote about the conversation afterward
• 14% more time looking at the other person's face
• 31% less video-meeting fatigue in a separate experiment

In an internal pilot, more than 87% of participants rated Starline meetings better than their earlier video-conferencing experiences. Google itself acknowledged that lab studies are low in external validity, which means the results may not carry over to real-world use.

The September announcement adds results from an eight-week internal study. Google teams reported feeling 50% more connected, found it 33% easier to make sure feedback was understood, and saw a 21% drop in the need for follow-up meetings. Google didn't publish the participant count or methodology. UC Today made a similar point about Google's group-mode figures: These figures come from Google's own research programme, not an independent study.

None of this makes the findings wrong. It makes them claims to test in your own environment, not results you can promise the CFO.

Should your organization care?​

The following is editorial analysis based on general industry knowledge, not on the vendor sources.

Beam targets a small but valuable set of meetings: senior hiring, client conversations, coaching and difficult one-to-ones, where reading someone's face is the whole point. Your Monday stand-up doesn't need a 65-inch light-field display.

There's also a network effect working against you. 3D only happens between two Beam rooms, so one unit on its own is mostly a 2D endpoint. Value starts with a pair: two offices, or an office plus an Industrious site.

A sensible evaluation:

1. Pick a narrow use case where nonverbal cues matter, such as final-round interviews.
2. Test at Industrious first, if you're near one of the four launch cities.
3. Check your platform fit. A Teams-only organization gets 2D. Budget for Meet or Zoom licensing if you want 3D.
4. Measure more than enjoyment. Track follow-up meetings, travel avoided and hiring outcomes, alongside license, install and reseller-support costs.
5. Plan around the one-reseller-per-license-type rule before signing anything across multiple regions.

The bottom line​

HP Dimension with Google Beam is now easier to buy across six countries, backed by 18 partners and a try-before-you-buy option at Industrious from October. The technology is impressive, and Google's research is interesting, though it's all Google's own. The limits are clear: 3D is one-to-one between two Beam rooms, it runs only on Google Meet and Zoom, purchases go through a Workspace tenant and an HP Amplify reseller, and Teams connects in 2D.

For a Windows and Teams organization, Beam is a specialist tool for a few high-stakes conversations, not a replacement for the rest of your meeting rooms.