In the wake of the pandemic, Google Meet emerged as one of thebest video conferencing utilities around, becoming the tool of choice for businesses already deeply embedded in the Google Workspace ecosystem. This year, Google has been focused on injecting AI into all kinds of places in Workspace with theDuet AI program, and we now have a detailed understanding of how AI will play a role in making customizable virtual backgrounds for Meet.
Google Meet’s virtual backgrounds serve the same fundamental purpose — obscuring your actual surroundings from other participants on the call without the use of a green screen. There are plenty of choices between static backgrounds, animated ones, custom images, and simple blur effects, but now generative AI is entering the picture, quite literally. Android Police founderArtem Russakovskii recently sawGoogle roll out generative AI backgrounds as a test.
The newGenerate a backgroundoption located under theApply visual effectssection in Meet settings allows test participants to enter a textual prompt describing the image. AI then kicks in, creating a few static virtual backgrounds to choose from. Google supportdocumentation for the testis online as well, showing us how generative AI backgrounds will look in action.
Generative AI virtual backgrounds for Meet
As we mentioned at the outset, this feature is apart of the Google Duet AI program. The feature is rolling out to eligible testers gradually on desktop, for which you need to be a Workspace customer, a Google Workspace Labs tester by invitation, using US English. Although the current test group for AI-generated backgrounds is small, we suspect the feature will be limited to Workspace customers even after the testing phase is complete.
On the flip-side, we are hopeful Duet AI features will eventually reach individual Google accounts as well. After all, Google is developing all sorts of exciting features under Duet AI, like its writing assistantHelp Me Write, which has already rolled out to some users, and Help me Visualize in Slides where your textual prompts are instantly converted into images for the presentation. Google hasn’t specified a timeline for the wider availability of these features, but testing is well underway for some, and we are hopeful the wait isn’t going to be long.
