Change to default avatar for Google account owners

Google account owners with Google+ enabled have the option to add a photo to their account profile to signify when they are logged in and help make it clear which account they are using. To extend these benefits to those account owners who haven’t added a photo to their account, we’ll be replacing the default Google account avatar with a custom avatar showing the account owner’s given-name initial (two-character given names will be fully displayed). In some cases where initials are not available, a plain colored avatar will be used.*

Starting this week, Google Apps users with Google+ enabled who haven’t set an account photo will see this change in the Google Bar. The change will be gradually reflected across all Google products over the coming months.

Note: Users with initials using scripts other than Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean will see this change later this year.

*Details updated on January 25, 2016, to reflect current behavior.

Launch Details
Release track:  
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Rollout pace: 
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact: 
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates