Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp to get several Gen AI features soon

At the Connect event that was held yesterday, Meta announced several new features powered by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) for Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. These features include AI-generated stickers for three platforms, two AI-powered image editing features, Restyle and Backdrop, for Instagram, and Meta AI, an AI-powered virtual assistant that will be available on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and Quest 3.

Generate stickers using AI on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp

Meta is calling AI-generated stickers simply AI stickers. These stickers are generated by AI based on the description you provide, which you can use in chats and stories. For example, you can ask this tool to create a sticker where a slice of a pizza is playing with a football and it will create a relevant sticker for you. You have to describe the kind of sticker you want in the text format. This feature is based on Llama 2 and Emu. According to Meta, AI stickers will roll out to “select English language users over the next month”.

Edit images using AI on Instagram

Moving on to the AI-powered image editing tools on Instagram, there are two: Backdrop and Restyle. Backdrop can replace the background in an image with the one you want. For instance, if you have an image where you are lying down on the grass, you can ask this feature to edit the picture in such a way that you are surrounded by puppies, and Backdrop will do it for you.

As for Restyle, Meta says that it “lets you reimagine your images by applying the visual styles you describe”. For example, you can type “watercolour” in the description box, and this feature will apply a watercoloured effect to your image. Just like AI stickers, you have to describe the editing that you want the Backdrop and Restyle features to perform in the text format.

Both features open up a whole new world of image editing on the social media platform. To prevent people from mistaking AI-edited images for human-generated content, Meta will indicate if an image is created with AI. Restyle and Backdrop are also based on Emu, and according to the company, these two features will arrive on Instagram “soon”.

Meta AI is coming soon

As for Meta AI, it is a text-based virtual assistant. It works in a similar way as other GenAI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants, such as ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Microsoft Copilot, carrying out tasks like answering your questions and generating images. According to the company, you can interact with Meta AI “like a person”. This tool is based on Llama 2 and Meta’s latest large language model (LLM), and it has real-time information from Bing. According to a press release, MetaAI will be available “soon”.