Image playground for MacOS is unavailable without Photo Library

Recently upgraded from an Intel-based Mac to an M4... I'm running on macOS Sequoia version 15.3 and Apple Intelligence's Image Playground doesn't load up properly. Displays a Photo Library Unavailable message and that I need to Open Photos to use Image Playground. Not a Photos user, but I've got that open and running but Image Playground doesn't want to work which is a huge bummer.

Anyone else experienced this? What're your recommendations?