Google puts 3D Beam calls in 20 USO centers for deployed troops

Google said it is working with the USO to bring Google Beam to 20 USO locations globally, so deployed service members can hold 3D video calls with their families. The hardware is HP Dimension with Google Beam.

Josh Woodward, Google’s VP of Google Labs, Gemini and AI Studio, described the effort in a Google blog post dated October 26, 2026. The post opens with the line: “For deployed service members, the hardest distance is measured in missed moments.”

A pilot in Poland now grows to 20 sites

According to Google, the program began with a pilot earlier in 2026 at Trzebień, Poland, which connected families with Fort Bliss in Texas. The blog names Grafenwöhr, Germany, and Fort Hood, Texas, as places where the program is expanding. The other locations in the 20-site rollout are not listed, and the post gives no installation dates.

Google describes Beam as a “true-to-life, 3D video communication experience” that conveys body language and eye contact. The post gives no specifications, such as resolution, latency or call length, and does not say whether the calls are free for service members or what Google or the USO paid for the equipment.

Alongside the rollout, Google published a docuseries directed by veteran and filmmaker Kyle Hausmann-Stokes. It follows four soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment (the Iron Dukes) during their deployment in Poland, and their families back in the US. One family deals with an eight-hour time difference that made a promotion celebration feel distant; another includes a one-year-old who practiced her first steps. The series is on a Google YouTube playlist, with more information at goo.gle/USO.

Hardware that costs about $25,000 a unit

Beam is the commercial successor to Project Starline, Google’s research project on 3D video calls. Google’s Beam page cites an April 2023 Starline study that found 39% more non-verbal behavior, 37% more turn-taking, a 31% reduction in meeting fatigue and a 28% boost in memory recall compared with ordinary video calls. Those figures are Google’s own and come from the earlier prototype, not from military use.

The commercial device is another matter. Road to VR reported in 2025 that HP Dimension would cost $25,000, with the Beam license sold separately. Computerworld reported on September 24, 2026 that Beam became generally available through HP’s Dimension hardware in six countries, and that Google gave no details on hardware or license costs. 9to5Google earlier listed the first markets as the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Japan.

Who gets to use it, and what is unproven

This is a shared-facility model. Service members would not buy anything: they would book time at a USO center. For a product aimed at enterprise meetings, that is a different test, because families on the other end also need a Beam unit, as in the Poland to Fort Bliss pilot. How many US sites will have matching units is not stated.

At that list price, a 20-site rollout implies hardware of roughly $500,000 at full price, a back-of-envelope figure from the reported $25,000 unit cost, not a number from Google or the USO. Whether the units are donated, discounted or paid for is not disclosed.

The evidence for the benefit is so far a docuseries and a pilot, with no outcomes data. Beam has also been reported as supporting one-on-one conversations, which suits family calls but means no group call with a whole household around one screen, according to 2025 coverage by Mixed News. Google’s announcement does not address that limit.