Windows 11 could bring your desktop to life with AI-enhanced 'moving wallpapers'

Windows 11 Wallpaper 7
(Image credit: TechRadar)

Windows 11 is set to receive a whole new look and feel with an upcoming update, thanks to an AI-powered feature that will revamp the desktop experience. 

Internal documents spotted by Windows Latest suggest we may get something akin to a ‘live wallpaper’ for users' desktops. This would make the wallpaper look like it's 'popping out’ of your screen when you move your cursor across the display, with its appearance changing based on the cursor's movement. 

In addition to this, Windows Latest hints at the potential of adding a ‘parallax effect’ to the desktop background, making the wallpaper move more slowly in the background than the windows and apps that are on top, giving the illusion of depth to make your background look more immersive. 

Microsoft has been pushing hard on AI integration, putting a lot of time and effort into implementing artificial intelligence into its products since the success of the new and improved Bing, and it seems that every facet of Microsoft’s products may be graced by AI at some point. 

Cool wallpapers incoming  

We’re probably only going to see AI-powered wallpapers on devices that can support the movement detection required to create the desired effect, so we might first see the feature on newer, more powerful machines. 

It’s exciting to see Microsoft using AI to improved the aesthetics of your device, even if it is just a nifty wallpaper at this stage. From what we can tell, these depth and movement effects should work with most images you might use as a desktop background, and should save you from having to search for (and install) live wallpaper applications.

This could also be the first step in creating a truly immersive and interesting background with the help of AI, as we may soon see new features pop up once Microsoft makes the feature available. Hopefully, the company will build on that, and introduce more fun and engaging ways to make your device your own.

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Muskaan Saxena
Computing Staff Writer

Muskaan is TechRadar’s UK-based Computing writer. She has always been a passionate writer and has had her creative work published in several literary journals and magazines. Her debut into the writing world was a poem published in The Times of Zambia, on the subject of sunflowers and the insignificance of human existence in comparison. Growing up in Zambia, Muskaan was fascinated with technology, especially computers, and she's joined TechRadar to write about the latest GPUs, laptops and recently anything AI related. If you've got questions, moral concerns or just an interest in anything ChatGPT or general AI, you're in the right place. Muskaan also somehow managed to install a game on her work MacBook's Touch Bar, without the IT department finding out (yet).