Meta launches Muse Image AI model that pulls Instagram users into generated photos

Meta's new Muse Image model can pull other Instagram users into AI photos

Meta is launching the first AI image generation model made by its Superintelligence Labs division. The Muse Image model now powers the image-making tools across the Meta AI app, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and it's coming soon to Facebook and Messenger, according to an announcement on Tuesday. It's part of the growing Muse family of AI models that replace Meta's Llama lineup. Alexandr Wang, who Meta hired to head up its Superintelligence Labs last year, says on Threads that Muse Image is "agentic," meaning it works with its Muse Spark large language model "to reason through your prompt, search the web, and plan before it generates." Meta is also planning to launch a Muse Video model, which Wang teased, saying it's "competitive on prompt adherence, visual fidelity, temporal consistency." As noted by Meta, users can @ mention other Instagram accounts in Muse Image prompts, allowing the AI model to incorporate their likeness into its output. Meta says "tagging a username lets Meta AI use public photos to build a visual," but notes that users can control how people reuse their content for AI. Users can also transform images using suggested prompts and create designs for things like invitations and postcards. Additionally, Muse Image can redesign rooms based on an image pulled from Facebook Marketplace (or elsewhere on the web), and allows users to make changes directly to photos by drawing right on top of them, which they can then share to their feed, story, or chat. The Muse Image model will power the 30 new AI effects coming to Instagram Stories in the US before rolling out to other countries and in more areas of Meta's apps soon.

Meta releases first image model since Mark Zuckerberg's AI overhaul

Meta has launched its first image-generation model since chief executive Mark Zuckerberg undertook a dramatic overhaul of the company's AI efforts, as it races to catch up with rivals including OpenAI and Google. The $1.6tn social media platform on Tuesday revealed Muse Spark Image, which it said used "advanced reasoning to understand complex prompts" and would be integrated into its own Meta AI chatbot. The model would be used to power new editing features on Meta's Instagram photo app and integrated into the suite of tools used by marketers to generate advertising for the platform, the company said. The launch comes three months after Meta launched its first Muse Spark model, which was multimodal -- meaning it can process various types of data -- but produced text-only outputs. Meta also said on Tuesday that it had a new video model in development called Muse Video. Over the past year, Zuckerberg has poured billions of dollars into developing AI infrastructure and poaching top AI talent in an effort to catch up with rivals Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. He tasked a new team of AI researchers in a secretive lab called "TBD" -- To Be Determined -- to focus on spearheading the development of state of the art models. It is led by Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang. The push came after its Llama 4 large language model, released in April 2025, lagged rivals. Meta also struggled to develop cutting-edge image and video models. It instead opted last year to strike a multiyear, multibillion-dollar deal paying the AI start-up Midjourney to use its image-generation technology. Meta will now wind down its use of Midjourney for certain image-generation capabilities, replacing it with Muse Spark Image, according to one person familiar with the matter. Midjourney will continue to power some of Meta's video generation features, but this would also be replaced by Muse Video over time, the person said. Zuckerberg has faced increasing pressure to justify the company's ballooning AI spending and recently slashed 10 per cent of its workforce, hurting staff morale. Meta shares jumped almost 9 per cent in a single session last week on the news that the company is exploring setting up a cloud-computing business in order to sell off any surplus computing power. The original Muse Spark is widely considered an improvement on Llama 4, but Zuckerberg and Wang acknowledged that it was still behind on coding and agentic capabilities that power AI bots to operate independently. Unlike Meta's previous Llama models, which have been "open" -- or freely available for developers to tweak -- Muse Spark is a smaller, closed model, making it harder to assess. Meta promised some businesses and developers would have access to the model via a private application programming interface, but this has been repeatedly delayed. Muse Spark Image beat leading models from Google and Elon Musk's SpaceXAI in benchmarks for text-to-image and editing, according to rankings on Arena. Arena compiles leader boards from votes by testers who have early access on the independent platform, who ranked Muse Spark Image below OpenAI's GPT Image 2 model, released in April. Additional reporting by Cristina Criddle in San Francisco

Meta enters AI image model race in bid to court advertisers and subscribers

Meta on Tuesday released Muse Image, a new artificial intelligence model for creating images as the company seeks to attract creators and advertisers to its offerings. Originally codenamed Mango, the AI technology marks the second major release from Meta Superintelligence Labs led by Alexandr Wang, who oversaw the April unveiling of the Muse Spark large language model that succeeded the company's previous Llama family of models. Muse Image will be available for consumers to access for free via the Meta AI app and site, WhatsApp direct messages and Instagram Stories. Power users and creators must sign up for one of Meta's new monthly subscription plans that debuted in May to create many AI-generated images and access certain features. If users hit their free limit, they can purchase a Meta One subscription or wait until their limit resets, the company said. Muse Image will also power advertiser-specific, image-generation tools as part of Meta's AI-powered Advantage Plus service that lets brands more easily develop ad creative for their marketing campaigns and automate certain tasks. Meta said it's been working with businesses and advertisers as part of debuting Muse Image. "Muse Image brings native reasoning to the creative process to adjust elements, swap styles, and create variations based on the advertiser's creative, resulting in high-quality, on-brand ad variations with fewer iterations," the company said in a blog post for businesses. "In the coming weeks, advertisers and agencies can expect to see image variants powered by Muse Image."

Meta's new Muse Image model accepts Instagram accounts as a prompt - Engadget

The new AI model is also powering effects in Stories and image generation in WhatsApp. After launching Muse Spark and kicking off its new family of AI models in April 2026, Meta is ready to tackle image generation. Muse Image is the first AI image model created by Meta Superintelligence Labs, and the company says it's now available in the US through the Meta AI app, Instagram and WhatsApp. Muse Image uses an "advanced reasoning to understand complex prompts, seamlessly blending multiple photos into high-quality creations," according to Meta. The model can generate images in a wide variety of formats and styles, and understands conversational prompts to make asking for changes simple. Meta also claims Muse Image can be prompted to generate a functional QR code and that text it produces in images "comes out legible and styled to match." The new model will power a variety of features across Meta's apps, but in Meta AI, it's primarily focused on image generation and editing. You can use a series of presets as a jumping off point for editing or generating an image, or the "Ideas" tab in the app's image editor to prompt further tweaks. Meta will even let you draw and write on a photo to indicate what you want Muse Image to change. Like Google, Meta is connecting its new AI model to its other services. Taking a picture of your room and asking Meta AI to redecorate can pull furniture from listings from the web and Facebook Marketplace. Tagging a friend's Instagram account, meanwhile, can incorporate their likeness in a generated image. The same controls you have in place for how your photos are reused on Instagram apply, but Meta seems interested in capturing some of the viral interest OpenAI drummed up when it let users create videos of friends with its now defunct Sora app. Outside of the Meta AI app, Muse Image is powering over 30 new effects for Instagram Stories, including one that edits your photo to look like you took it with a disposable camera and another simply called "Puffer." A new interface in Instagram's image editor will let you preview these effects before you apply them, and Meta says you can also prompt an entirely new edit if you're not happy with its built-in effects. All the new image editing and generating abilities unlocked by Muse Image also carry over to chats with Meta AI in WhatsApp. Using Muse Image is free for "everyday creation," according to Meta, with the option to generate even more images with a paid Meta One subscription. When asked for more information, Meta said limits could vary depending on variables like which services users are accessing Muse Image from or their current location. Once you've reached your limit, Meta says it'll prompt you to subscribe to Meta One before your allotment of free images resets. Muse Image is available in the Meta AI app, Instagram and WhatsApp in the US to start, with more countries and Meta products to come. Meta also says a Muse Video model is in active development.

Meta Unveils an A.I. Image Generator

Muse Image, which can create realistic images for users on Instagram and WhatsApp, is the company's latest attempt to catch up in the global artificial intelligence race. Meta on Tuesday released an artificial intelligence tool that can generate images, the company's latest push to integrate the technology into more aspects of its social media business and catch up with rivals in a global A.I. race. The new A.I. image model, Muse Image, is available on Instagram and WhatsApp, the company said. Users can generate A.I. photos similar to those they would normally post, including vacation selfies from a beach or a reel from a photo booth. "Muse Image acts as the creative partner that knows your world, making it easy to turn your ideas into high-quality visuals," the company said in a blog post. It added, "One tap restores an old family photo, lets you see yourself with trending hairstyles, or reimagines you as a claymation character." The company also previewed an A.I. video generator, Muse Video. It will become available to the public in the coming months in the Meta AI app, the stand-alone platform for Meta's A.I. chatbot. Muse Image is the first A.I. image generator created under the company's new A.I. division, Meta Superintelligence Labs. After Meta fell behind in the A.I. race last spring, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, spent billions of dollars revamping the division in an attempt to compete with Google, Anthropic, OpenAI and others. In the last year, Meta has slowly narrowed the gap. But Muse Spark, its top chatbot model, released in April, still lags rivals. Meta's release of new A.I. image and video tools follows the rest of the industry's shift to tools that can write code. OpenAI shut down Sora, which made A.I. videos, in March as the company said it would focus its resources elsewhere. Meta, which owns Facebook and Threads in addition to Instagram and WhatsApp, plans to invest up to $145 billion in A.I. this year as part of its efforts to transform itself into an A.I. company. Meta is also increasingly relying on A.I. to moderate content on its social media platforms, as well as to offer customer service. The company is also asking employees to use A.I. tools to speed up their work as it lays off thousands to help offset spending on the technology. Meta's embrace of A.I. has not always been smooth. Last month, a bug in the company's A.I. customer service software let hackers attack more than 34,000 Instagram accounts. Internal A.I. tracking software has also hurt morale among Meta's rank-and-file employees. Muse Image will replace technology from Midjourney, an A.I. start-up that Meta previously worked with to generate A.I. images, in the Meta AI app. Users can tag friends in the app to create "personalized birthday cards, group trip memes or playful edits" based on their friends' Instagram accounts, the company said. In the coming weeks, advertisers will be able to use the new A.I. model to make ads. Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief A.I. officer, has said publicly that his A.I. division is planning to release a new cutting-edge model, called Watermelon internally, in the coming months. Watermelon is on track to perform as well as OpenAI's latest model, Mr. Wang said at a staff meeting last week.

Meta debuts Muse Image, its first AI image model built under Alexandr Wang's lab

Meta launched Muse Image across Meta AI, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Users can generate images of friends from public posts. Advertisers get access soon. Opt-out available. Meta launched Muse Image on Tuesday, its first image-generation AI model built under the Superintelligence Labs division led by Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang. The model is rolling out inside the Meta AI chatbot and will be embedded across Instagram and WhatsApp. Users can generate images from text prompts or alter existing pictures. The most notable feature lets users create images featuring friends or creators based on their publicly available Instagram posts. Those who do not want their content reused or remixed by AI can opt out in the settings menu. All images made with Muse Image will include an invisible watermark, and the system has safety precautions to prevent violations of Meta's terms of service, including CSAM. Advertisers will soon have access to the model for creating marketing materials. Meta's Superintelligence Labs debuted its first large language model, Muse Spark, in April, and is also building a video generation model expected in the coming months. The image model is the second major product from the lab that Wang was hired to lead a year ago, after Meta invested billions and hired several researchers with compensation packages exceeding $200 million. Meta plans to sell access to its AI models to outside developers via a cloud offering, allowing the company to monetise its data centre infrastructure and expensive AI chips. That cloud business is part of a broader effort Bloomberg reported last week, which could include selling raw computing power. Despite those plans, Meta is still hungry for more compute, recently signing deals with CoreWeave, Google, and Oracle. The company cut 8,000 jobs in May and redirected billions toward AI infrastructure as it races to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic across every AI modality.

Meta AI app adds image generation, also powering WhatsApp and Instagram features

Earlier this year, Meta replaced its Llama AI models with Muse Spark, part of its newly built Meta Superintelligence Labs effort. Today Meta is releasing its first image generation tool from Superintelligence Labs as part of the Meta AI app. The company says its new image-gen tools also power creative experiences in Instagram and WhatsApp with more to come. Muse Image arrives in the Meta AI app Like similar systems, Muse Image lets you generate images with a descriptive text prompt. Muse Image uses Muse Spark AI reasoning to interpret the prompt, search the web for context, and plan the image creation process before generating results. Today, Meta is rolling out Muse Image, the company's first image generation model from MetaSuperintelligence Labs, now available in Meta AI. Muse Spark made Meta AI a smarter assistant; now, Muse Image acts as the creative partner that knows your world, making it easy to turn your ideas into high-quality visuals that you can download and share anywhere, including directly to your feed, story, or chat. As a Meta product, Muse Image can also work with photos that you upload, friend profiles that you tag, or trending information on Meta properties like Facebook. Meta also says Muse Image is already powering new creative experiences on Instagram and WhatsApp, and more features are coming to Facebook and elsewhere. The model also powers new creative tools across Meta's apps. You can use more than 30 new AI-powered effects for Instagram Stories and generate images in your direct chats with MetaAI on WhatsApp -- starting in limited countries with more locations on the way. [...] Soon, Meta will bring Muse Image to more countries and the places where people use Meta AI,including Facebook and Messenger, and additional surfaces on Instagram and WhatsApp. Inthe coming weeks, advertisers and agencies will be able to tap into Muse Image throughAdvantage+ creative. Additionally, Meta says that Muse Video is already in development, giving us a clue about where Meta AI is headed next after Muse Spark and Muse Image. You can read the full announcement from Meta here for all the details. You can download the Meta AI app for free on the App Store.

Meta's AI catch-up effort gets a new look

Why it matters: The model is the latest test of Meta's effort to close the gap with cutting-edge AI rivals, even as those companies continue to push forward. Driving the news: Muse Image will take over image generation duties for Meta AI and some experiences within WhatsApp and Instagram, where it will power more than 30 new AI effects. * The company says that it will soon be available on Facebook and Messenger and that advertisers will also soon be able to tap Muse Image as part of Meta's Advantage+ tool. * Meta says Muse Image is free for "everyday creation," with more usage available as part of the company's recently added subscription option. * Meta also previewed Muse Video, a movie-generating model coming soon to Meta AI. Zoom in: Meta is leaning heavily into the social possibilities of image generation. * With the new Muse Image-powered Meta AI, users can tag public Instagram accounts and incorporate photos from those profiles into generated images. * Instagram users can opt out of being tagged or having their images used, but the feature is enabled by default. Zoom out: Meta says Muse Image performs strongly across several benchmarks, generally surpassing Google's Nano Banana 2 and trailing only ChatGPT's image generator. Yes, but: Meta is still evaluating whether it will make Muse Image available to outside developers. * Developers, meanwhile, still don't have access to Muse Spark, the language model Meta introduced in April. The company says that API access to Spark is coming soon. * Meta also plans to release an open model based on Spark, but has yet to do so. * The company says it is on track to release a significantly more powerful model than Spark that uses vastly more compute power. Between the lines: The image-model release comes amid reports of frustration inside Meta over both the pace of its AI progress and the methods it has used to accelerate development. * Meta reassigned thousands of engineers to data labeling and other AI-related work, hurting morale in a move that executives have since acknowledged was poorly handled. * The company also began using employees' work activity to collect AI training data, but paused the program after a privacy failure left potentially sensitive information broadly accessible inside Meta. What we're watching: Whether Meta can deliver a significant leap beyond Muse Spark later this year.

Meta launches Muse Image, its first in-house AI image generator

Meta $META introduced Muse Image on Tuesday, the company's first image generation model built in-house, making it available to consumers through the Meta AI app and to advertisers through its Advantage+ ad platform. The model, developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs, powers image creation across Meta AI and a set of new features within Instagram Stories and WhatsApp direct messages, including more than 30 new AI-powered effects, the company said. Muse Image will expand to Facebook and Messenger later in the year. Muse Image is free for general use. Consumers who want higher usage limits can access the model through one of Meta's subscription plans, which debuted in May, the company said. In the coming weeks, advertisers and agencies will be able to use Muse Image through Advantage+, Meta's AI-powered ad tool, to generate and vary image-based ad creative. The model was originally codenamed Mango, according to CNBC. Alexandr Wang, who heads Meta Superintelligence Labs, previously oversaw the April debut of Muse Spark -- a large language model that replaced the company's Llama family -- making Muse Image the lab's second significant model launch. Among Muse Image's features, users can edit photos by annotating directly on an image, tag public Instagram accounts to incorporate their photos into generated images, and snap a photo of a room to generate a redesigned version using real products from the web or Facebook Marketplace, the company said. According to Axios, the tagging feature is on by default, though Instagram users have the option to opt out. Meta released internal benchmark data placing Muse Image below OpenAI's GPT Image 2 in overall performance while putting it ahead of Google $GOOGL's Nano Banana 2 when tested on image-editing scenarios involving one or more photos. Image generation inside Meta AI has until now been handled by outside vendors, including Midjourney and Black Forest Labs; with Muse Image available, the company intends to pull that work in-house, according to CNBC. Meta also said a video generation model called Muse Video is in development, though no release date was given. The launch reflects Meta's broader effort to bring AI capabilities in-house. Meta lost access to a portion of its contracted Gemini capacity from Google earlier this year due to compute constraints, which set back some internal AI projects and prompted the company to ask employees to limit AI token usage. Muse Spark has since taken on more of the work previously handled by Gemini. Meta is also exploring a cloud infrastructure venture that would sell outside developers access to its AI models and computing capacity, putting it in potential competition with Amazon $AMZN Web Services, Microsoft $MSFT Azure, and Google Cloud.

Meta expands generative AI tools with Muse Image rollout

Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it is rolling out Muse Image, its first image-generation model from Meta Superintelligence Labs, as the Facebook owner expands generative AI tools across its apps. The company said Muse Image, which is integrated into its ⁠Meta ⁠AI chatbot, can interpret complex prompts, use photos as inputs and let users edit generated images directly through sketches or annotations. Here are some details: Muse Image will power more than 30 new AI effects for Instagram Stories and enable image generation in ⁠direct chats with Meta AI on WhatsApp, initially in select countries, the company said. Meta plans ⁠to expand Muse Image to more countries and integrate it into Facebook and Messenger, the company said. While basic use of Muse Image with Meta AI is free, additional creation capabilities will be available through Meta's subscription plans, the company said. In April, the company launched Muse Spark, the first text-and-reasoning AI model from the Meta Superintelligence Labs team it assembled last year to ⁠catch up with rivals in the AI race. Advanced AI models are at the center of the AI boom, powering autonomous tasks such as writing software code, generating content and handling customer support inquiries. The company also announced an early preview of Muse Video, its video generation model.

Meta to integrate Muse Image model into ad creative tools By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Meta will integrate Muse Image, the first image generation model from Meta Superintelligence Labs, into its Advantage+ creative ad tool in the coming weeks. The company announced the update on Tuesday. The new model uses visual reasoning and self-refinement capabilities to generate ad variations. Meta said Muse Image can interpret creative briefs and adjust elements to produce brand-consistent advertising content. More than 8 million advertisers currently use at least one of Meta's generative AI ad creative tools. The Advantage+ creative tool currently helps advertisers produce creative variations, including new backgrounds for product images and lifestyle image variations. Advertisers who tested the Muse Image-powered generation reported higher-quality creative output. The testers highlighted photorealism and product integrity as notable improvements. Muse Image will also power a room restyling feature in Meta AI Shopping. The feature allows users to visualize products from business catalogs in their own spaces. The same model is being deployed across Meta AI, Instagram, and WhatsApp for consumer-facing AI creative experiences. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.