The feature taps AI to adjust the appearance of your eyes

During the Surface Pro X unveiling yesterday, Microsoft showed off new eye gaze technology. The feature taps AI to adjust the appearance of your eyes so you appear to be looking straight at the camera when you’re on a conference call. We talked to Microsoft to get a little more detail on the AI-powered functionality, which is similar to “eye correction” in iOS 13.

“AI is understanding where the camera placement is compared to your where you are looking in the video, and it’s shifting your eyes downward [or upward],” Microsoft Devices director Megan Solar told VentureBeat. “It’s creating a sense that you’re looking at me eye-to-eye, even though you may be looking at your camera, you may be looking slightly off.”

Panos Panay, head of engineering for all of Microsoft’s devices, noted onstage that the feature uses the Surface Pro X’s ARM-based SQ1 co-engineered by Microsoft and Qualcomm. Normally such a feature on a regular PC would draw about 15 watts, Panay said, which is why it “doesn’t happen today.” But thanks to the SQ1, he claimed it uses 50 times less power “and doesn’t even touch the GPU.”

This eye gaze topplaythai technology requires the SQ1, so it will only be available on the Surface Pro X, we confirmed. The Surface team worked on a bunch of features and improvements optimized using the SQ1, and the eye gaze technology falls into this category. Assuming Microsoft ends up using the SQ1 in future devices, the feature could presumably make its way there too.

Furthermore, the eye gaze technology will be only available for Microsoft Teams on the Surface Pro X. Microsoft wouldn’t say whether it would open up the functionality to other messaging and video conferencing apps or keep it as a Teams exclusive.