Meta is pointing the way to the future of video calling with its new feature AI Backgrounds. This tool allows users on Messenger to generate a background for video calls.
The Five Most-Key Takeaways from This Blog Post
- For business owners, this A.I. tool points to the future of videoconferencing with colleagues, clients, or customers. This will likely extend far beyond Meta AI and be offered by many other platforms.
- Flexibility in controlling the image on a video call can allow for greater flexibility for the person behind the image. Suddenly, the challenges of travelling or working in spaces with dull backgrounds can be mitigated with A.I. that can control others’ perception of just where you are.
- This joins the latest in Meta’s A.I. innovations, which includes the multimodal chatbot Meta AI.
- There is certainly a possibility that this technology will get so good that it will be possible to make the backgrounds look completely natural. Then, the viewers will not know whether the background is A.I.-generated or not.
- More broadly, this connects to the emerging use of generative A.I. to alter, sometimes in real time, the appearance and image of the user of the tool. Meta AI’s Imagine feature is a good example of this: users can use the generative A.I. to “imagine” themselves as, say, a superhero.
A Developing Gen-A.I. Trend
As mentioned above in the first Key Takeaway, Meta will not be the only company to offer such a service. Being able to alter the surroundings in a video call certainly has a lot of appeal.
There is a strong possibility that just about every significant video-conferencing platform will be offering such a service.
Business owners will welcome this, because Meta’s Messenger service is not exactly the first-and-foremost place where business is done online.
Made in Your Own Image and Likeness
So, what is the primary appeal to this for business owners?
For one, it gives employers and employees alike a tool that allows for greater control of one’s online presence.
That is a point worth zeroing in on, because the ability to control one’s image is one of the main attractions for the Internet in the first place.
Just look around at people’s profiles and you will see an effort by individuals to deliberately construct something like an online double of themselves.
Naturally, usually these doubles are idealized, better-looking, funnier, smarter, etc., versions of the real thing. The person collaging together images and text posts and other media content gets to create an impression of themselves that others may not otherwise get of that person in real-life interaction.
So in a business context, this has obvious implications. Generating nice-looking A.I. backgrounds during, say, a sales call can lend a feeling of greater sophistication and professionalism and other positive emotions that a potential client may not feel in a physical face-to-face in-person meeting.
Deepfakery?
One of the potential business problems is that people may become suspicious of the overuse of generative A.I.
As the technology develops, one imagines that the upscaling of the image could potentially extend from the background to the primary elements of the video calls’ windows.
Imagine, for instance, people readily “enhancing” themselves with generative A.I. with a tool on a video call. Not only making the clothes seem nicer, but adding the gen-A.I. version of a face filter.
That may be sort of sci-fi-y and out-there, but it nonetheless speaks to the problem that these A.I. tools could make people suspicious of what they see on video calls. In a way, then, it could backfire.
As knowledge of the availability of these tools spreads, then it may become the case that some clients and customers may indeed value in-person meetings above all, as these can eliminate the odds of deepfakery.
Other Great GO AI Blog Posts
GO AI the blog offers a combination of information about, analysis of, and editorializing on A.I. technologies of interest to business owners, with especial focus on the impact this tech will have on commerce as a whole.
On a usual week, there are multiple GO AI blog posts going out. Here are some notable recent articles:
- For Businesses and Other Organizations, What Makes a Successful Chatbot?
- IBM Watson vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini: How Will Each Affect Search Engines?
- Using A.I. to Find Resources for Business Owners
- How Would Restricting Open-Source A.I. Affect Business Owners?
- The EU’s A.I. Act Has Become Law: The Implications for Business Owners (Especially American)
In addition to our GO AI blog, we also have a blog that offers important updates in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), with blog posts like “Google Ends Its Plan to End Third-Party Cookies”.
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