Tired with the same old Google Meet backgrounds? With the aid of artificial intelligence, you should soon be able to swiftly construct your own.
The new capability, discovered by Artem Russakovskii, was released as a test on Google Workspace Labs, the company’s initiative that allows a limited number of users to test new AI capabilities before they are made available to the general public.
Google Workspace Labs users may test it out by launching Meet, selecting a meeting, clicking on the starry symbol that reads “Apply visual effects” on mouseover, and then selecting “Create a backdrop.”
Users will then be able to submit a text prompt and choose a style, such as fantasy, photography, illustration, and others. The selected style in Google’s example is “fantasy,” and the prompt is “an picture of a mystical woodland.” The end effect is seen in the image below.
Google states in a support guide for this feature that Workspace Labs tools may occasionally propose false or inappropriate information, so you should use them with caution. Google additionally specifies that created photographs can only be used within Google Meet.
This is a minor feature and one of several background settings in Meet, but it demonstrates how AI might change people’s digital life. Users will be able to make an endless number of backgrounds to meet any occasion, rather than selecting from a finite collection of previously made backdrops. It’s worth mentioning, though, that AI art has been criticised, both for the employment it may take away from human artists and for worries about copyright infringement.
There’s no hint on when Meet’s AI-based backdrop generation will be more publicly available.