‘Cameyo by Google’ launches with Chrome Enterprise integration, Gemini AI support

A year after its acquisition of Cameyo, Google is making the virtual application delivery platform generally available and integrating it with Chrome Enterprise.   

Cameyo’s virtualization technology enables business to access “legacy” Windows applications —from ERP tools to AutoCAD or Excel — a major limitation for Chromebooks in the workplace. It differs from traditional virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) tools by delivering just the individual app a user requires, Google said; the app is then accessed via the Chrome browser or as a progressive web app.

On Wednesday, Google announced that Cameyo by Google, as it’s now known, is generally available, priced at $132 per user a year.  

“Cameyo by Google helps us deliver on our vision for the future of work, one where you can access all of your applications side by side,” Rob Beard, product manager at Google, said during a briefing. It enables a “workspace where web apps and legacy applications are virtually the same, where the virtualization layer is invisible to the end users.” 

IT admins, Beard said, can “deliver apps to end users’ devices in minutes, without having to configure or even touch those end user devices.”

Google has also added an integration between Cameyo and Chrome Enterprise Premium, is browser and device management tool. This will ease the “deployment and management” of virtual apps, saidBeard, with access controls available via the Google Admin Console. The integration enables additional security features around virtual apps, such as URL filtering and data loss prevention (to stopusers from copying data out of an SAP app running in Cameyo, for instance).   

Another addition is the ability for Google’s Gemini AI assistant to interact with Cameyo-basedWindows apps. Otherwise, Cameyo users shouldn’t notice much difference from the product they’ve been using already, said Beard.

Cameyo by Google could help organizations that standardize on Google’s enterprise offerings continue to use legacy Windows apps, said Tom Mainelli, IDC group vice president, device and consumer research.

“Cameyo looks great as a standalone virtualization solution, but what’s powerful about this launch is its increased integration with the broader Google enterprise suite,” he said.

The ability to access Google’s Gemini AI in legacy apps could prove useful for end users, he said, while the Chrome Enterprise Premium integration means customers can “layer on additional security features” to those virtual apps.

While Cameyo by Google won’t convince a fully Windows-based enterprise to move entirely to Google’s ecosystem, it can “make it easier for organizations that are curious about and experimenting with Google’s various enterprise offerings to move more users into that ecosystem,” he said.

“If you are a Microsoft 365 organization and comfortable with that model, I don’t see Cameyo being a huge lever to get you to move,” said Avi Greengart, president and lead analyst at Techsponential. “That said, now that it is part of the Google suite, I do expect that it will get more visibility and adoption from those who were already using ChromeOS and/or considering Google Workspace and want to expand their deployments.”