Google is introducing AI-generated backgrounds for Meet calls

Thanks to the power of AI, Google is ready to radically change the way we think about adding virtual backgrounds to our video calls. First noticed via Google Workspace Labs (where Google tests new Workspace features before rolling them out to a wider user base) by Artem Russakovskii, Google is clearly hard at work to bring AI-rendered backgrounds that can be called up on demand by users before entering the chat.

Google Meet is starting to roll out AI background image support.

"On Google Meet, you can use the “Generate a background” prompt to create background images using artificial intelligence. For example, you can ask Google Meet to create an illustration of a magical forest."

— Artem Russakovskii (@ArtemR) July 18, 2023

Google Workspace Labs users can try out this new feature right now and with relative ease. Simply go to Google Meet, select a meeting (or create one), click the starry button at the bottom-right of your camera view, and then click on the “Effects” tab. Once there, select the “Generate a background” button and prompt Google with whatever you want your background to become.

After entering your prompt, you can then choose a predetermined style from a drop-down list. These styles range from fantasy and photography to illustration, and more. For instance, Google’s support example (shown above) goes with the “fantasy” style with the prompt, “an illustration of a magical forest.” The result is exactly what you’d imagine, transforming a normal background to a fantasy-style forest within seconds.

As is generally the case with these types of AI features, Meet may sometimes suggest inaccurate or inappropriate information. Google further clarifies that these AI-generated images are to be used exclusively within Google Meet and not outside of those bounds. But inside Google Meet, the sky should be the limit with what sort of backgrounds we all begin seeing in the coming months with the help of AI.

While this is pretty exciting to see, it’s worth noting that Google isn’t the first to offer up this sort of AI feature in a video chat setting. Snapchat also launched a generative-AI-based background creation feature for Snapchat+ subscribers, so this has been done before.

Still, adding this to the other new features for Google Meet released this year – like emoji reactions, pausing streams of individual tiles, support for 1080p streaming, and video tile pairing for education users – makes Google’s web-based video chat tool increasingly enticing for existing and potential users alike. As a service that felt rushed to compete with Zoom’s exponential growth back in 2020, Google Meet has matured into the video chat service of choice for millions at this point, and continued feature iteration like this is a big part of why that continues to be the case.