Meta has launched a new background editing feature for Instagram Stories, powered by generative AI, currently available to users within the United States. Ahmad Al-Dahle, Meta's lead for generative AI, announced the new tool on Threads, highlighting its ability to transform story backgrounds based on user input.
AI-Prompted Backgrounds: A Creative Twist
The innovative tool integrates with Instagram's Stories, allowing users to change image backgrounds by selecting from ready-made prompts or creating their own. With options like “On a red carpet,” and “Being chased by dinosaurs,” the new feature encourages playful storytelling. Users can also craft original prompts to tailor their backgrounds. As a social sharing incentive, friends viewing the story can use a “Try it” sticker to experiment with the background prompts themselves.
Meta Expands Its AI Suite Across Apps
The introduction of Instagram's background editor follows a series of AI-centric releases by parent company Meta. Earlier, Snapchat catered to premium users with an AI image generation tool, Dreams, and prompt-based background customization. Conversely, Meta targets a broader audience, integrating its 28 generative AI characters across WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram—bolstered with Bing search integration and improved context windows. Meta's standalone AI-image generator, Imagine with Meta, showcases the company's proprietary model, Emu, marking a steadfast move into AI-augmented social media experiences.
Meta has positioned its AI-powered tools as a central part of its social platforms, underlining a shift towards creating more immersive and personalized user experiences. As generative AI continues to evolve, such features indicate a growing trend of AI becoming an integral element of content creation in social media.
