Meta’s Latest Move: Unveiling Standalone Text-to-Image Generation Tool and AI Upgrades for Instagram and Facebook

Meta took a significant stride in advancing its AI capabilities, unveiling a plethora of enhancements across its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. The company’s virtual assistant, Meta AI, initially launched in September, is now geared to provide more detailed and accurate responses to user queries, promising an enriched user experience. Among the notable updates is the expansion of Meta’s text-to-image generation tool, Imagine, which is breaking free from its confines within messaging platforms to emerge as a standalone AI experience on the web.

In a recent Newsroom post detailing these AI updates, Meta introduced the standalone Imagine tool for image generation. Initially embedded exclusively within Meta’s messaging platforms, Imagine is breaking free and can now be accessed on the web for free. Meta stated, “Today, we’re expanding access to Imagine outside of chats, making it available in the US to start at imagine.meta.com.” The image creation tool operates on Meta’s image foundation model, Emu. Although the tool’s initial rollout is in the US, this move signifies Meta’s commitment to democratizing access to innovative AI experiences.

Meta is also bringing new updates and capabilities to core AI experiences on its platforms. The Meta AI virtual assistant is now more helpful, the company claims, generating more detailed responses on mobile and more accurate summaries of search results. “We’ve even made it so you’re more likely to get a helpful response to a wider range of requests,” the blog said. A Meta AI interaction can be triggered by starting a new message and selecting “Create an AI chat” on Meta’s messaging platforms, or by typing “@MetaAI” in a group chat followed by the query.

Outside of chats, Meta AI’s large language model will bring new experiences on Facebook and Instagram like options for AI-generated post comment suggestions, community chat topic suggestions in groups and more.

Imagine with Meta, the text-to-image generation tool, is also getting a new ‘reimagine’ feature on Messenger and Instagram that lets your friends riff on a Meta AI-generated image shared by you in messages and create entirely new images. Additionally, the company is also rolling out Instagram Reels in Meta AI chats, wherein the AI assistant will recommend and share reels for relevant video requests. AI-powered improvements are coming to Facebook, too. Meta is working on AI features that would draft birthday greetings, edit feed posts, write up a dating profile, or set up a new group.

Meta will also roll out invisible watermarking to its new Imagine with Meta AI image generation tool to boost AI transparency and curb misleading AI-generated content in the coming weeks. “The invisible watermark is applied with a deep learning model. While it’s imperceptible to the human eye, the invisible watermark can be detected with a corresponding model,” the blog said. The watermark will withstand image manipulation like cropping, editing or screenshotting.