Generative AI wallpapers: Availability and details

If one thing has become clear in 2023, it’s that generative AI is going to change our lives forever. The wallpaper on your Pixel device is a rather minor example of that in the grand scheme of things, but it’s something for tech enthusiasts to get excited about anyway. Until now, your options were to take a great picture somewhere, download some wallpaper, or get very good at art. Google just introduced another option: Generative AI wallpapers.

We’ll explain exactly what it is and when you’ll be able to try it for yourself.

What are generative AI wallpapers?

The term ‘generative AI’ refers to the sort of creations by AI that we’ve all been impressed by recently. That could be answers given by ChatGPT or images created by Midjouney — if AI generated it from a prompt, it falls into this category. So generative AI wallpapers are backgrounds for your device created by AI on your prompt.

Among a slew of other exciting new AI innovations, Google introduced the concept of generative AI wallpaper at Google I/O in May 2023. It debuted alongside emoji wallpapers, which allow you to create a background out of your favorite emojis, and cinematic wallpapers, which turn an existing photo into a dynamic 3D image.

You can see all three wallpaper innovations demonstrated in the YouTube clip above. When it comes to the generative AI wallpaper, you simply choose an artistic style for the theme and a prompt. Your Google Pixel device will then use the company’s text-to-image diffusion models to create several unique images that match your selection. You can choose one of them as your wallpaper. A nice extra element from Google is that the Material You feature will then match the color palette of your Android system to the wallpaper you created.

When will generative AI wallpapers become available?

If you have the Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro, generative AI wallpapers are available now. It took longer than the emoji and cinematic wallpapers to arrive on the Google flagship phones, but the full release of Android 14 included the exciting new feature. Check out our guide on how to use it.

Are generative AI wallpapers coming to non-Pixel devices?

Google understandably wanted to launch generative AI wallpapers to owners of its own devices at first. But the feature should theoretically come to all devices running Android 14 eventually. When that will happen remains to be seen. For example, there are rumors that the Samsung flagship devices will get the feature on the release of One UI 6.1.

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