How to Run Anonymous Polls and Q&A Sessions in Google Meet

If you want to encourage more participation in your Google Meet calls, consider allowing participants to answer anonymously. You can do this for Q&A sessions and polls.

Maybe you're hosting a Google Meet with a large number of participants, a public meeting, or a call in different regions of your company. By allowing anonymity, participants may feel more inclined to participate when asking questions and responding to surveys.

Notes: As of August 2022, Google reports that you need one of these Google Workspace accounts to use the feature: Essentials, Business Standard or Plus, Enterprise Starter, Essentials, Standard or Plus, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Education Plus, Nonprofits or an old G Suite Business account. Google Individual Workspace subscribers can also use the anonymous feature for surveys.

Allow anonymous answers to questions

When setting up a Q&A session in Google Meet, you can choose to allow anonymity.

Select the Activities icon in the lower right and select "Q&A".

Choose "Enable Q&A" to begin allowing questions.

Next, click the gear icon at the top right to view the settings. Enable the toggle for Allow anonymous questions (Q&A). Use the X in the top right to exit Settings and return to your meeting.

You can disable the anonymous response setting after starting the Q&A session if you wish. Just go back to the same area in Activities and turn off the toggle. Note that any anonymous questions asked before disabling the option remain unnamed in the meeting and questions report.

Allow anonymous responses for surveys

If you want to conduct a poll in Google Meet, you can easily allow answers without names. Different from Q&A, this is all encompassing. Once you enable anonymous responses for surveys, all responses submitted are anonymous.

Select the Activities icon in the bottom right.

Select "Polls" and choose "Start Poll" to configure your question and answer options.

Turn on the toggle for replies to appear unnamed.

Then, continue launching or recording your survey as you normally would. You cannot turn off the anonymous response setting after launching the survey.

How participants respond anonymously

It's easy for participants to ask questions and respond to surveys anonymously. Before submitting their question, they simply check the box for Post anonymously for questions. As mentioned above, all survey responses are automatically anonymous with the feature enabled.

Anonymous responses in question reports and polls

If you've hosted a Q&A session or conducted a poll in Google Meet, you're probably familiar with the reports you receive for responses after the meeting ends.

For any question asked, you will see Anonymous for the name in the Questions report.

For polls, you simply won't see a field for names in the poll results report.

Sometimes it can be difficult to get people to participate in a meeting. For your next Google Meet where you don't need attendee names, consider allowing anonymous questions and poll responses.