I’m not great at blurring or replacing my office background with ready-made images, but on the other hand, I’m lucky enough to have a small environment at my disposal that I have complete control over, and I want people to have the Doctor Zhivago DVD on the shelf behind me. However, I could see myself using the new ones AI generated wallpapers Google is now testing in its Workspace Labs (through XDA Developers / 9to5Google).
The feature was noticed by Artem Russakovsky, who tweeted about it this afternoon. For those who already have the feature enabled on their account, activating it is as simple as clicking the effects icon in the bottom right of your preview video before joining a meeting, typing a prompt describing what you want, and then choosing from a selection of categories, as seen in this nifty GIF from Google:
Then if you’re already in a meeting and want to change things up, the option is tucked away in the “Apply Vision Effects” option in the three-dot menu. I’ve been trying to test it, and I’m sorry to report that I don’t seem to be in the initial rollout, despite being part of Google’s testing program. Google says on its support page that the feature is “rolling out gradually and may not be available to you yet”.
It’s probably just as well because I’d just try to create horrific HR Giger rollercoaster backgrounds or something, which is decidedly unprofessional.
But maybe you’re luckier than me. If you’d like to try it out and aren’t already part of the Workspace Labs testing program, you can request to join on Google’s site. After that, if you forget what I said above, just go to Google support page describing how to get AI-generated backgrounds for your meeting and check it out for yourself.
However, there’s one big caveat to keep in mind when you sign up: Google’s Workspace Labs privacy policy for personal accounts says “human reviewers read, annotate, and process your Workspace Labs data” to improve features. You can find similar language on the support page linked above.
