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

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

You might be hosting a Google Meet with a large number of attendees, a public meeting, or a call in your different business regions. By allowing anonymity, participants feel more willing to participate when asking questions and responding to surveys.

Note: 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 one G Suite Business account. Google Individual Workspace subscribers can also use the anonymous survey feature.

Allow anonymous answers to questions

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

Select the activity icon in the bottom right and then “Questions and Answers”.

Select Enable Q&A to allow questions.

Then click the gear icon in the top right to view the settings. Turn on the Allow anonymous questions (Q&A) switch. Use the X in the top right to exit settings and return to your meeting.

You can turn off the anonymous replies setting after you start the Q&A session if you want. Just return to the same area in the activities and turn off the switch. Note that any anonymous questions asked before disabling the option will remain unnamed in the meeting and question report.

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Allow anonymous responses to polls

If you want to conduct a poll in Google Meet, you can easily allow no-name responses. Unlike Q&A, this is all-encompassing. Once you enable anonymous survey responses, all submitted responses will be anonymous.

Select the Activities icon in the bottom right.

Select “Surveys” and then “Start Survey” to set up your question and answer options.

Turn on the toggle for “Responses are displayed without names”.

Then proceed as usual to start or save your survey. You cannot turn off the anonymous response setting after you start the survey.

How participants respond anonymously

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

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Anonymous responses in the questions and survey reports

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

For all questions asked, Anonymous is displayed for the name in the question report.

Polls simply don’t show a field for names in the poll results report.

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