• by Colin Kirkland , May 4, 2023

Instagram is currently testing a generative AI feature that would allow users to create custom stickers -- animated GIFs added to user’s Stories -- based on text prompts in the app. 

The news was first mentioned by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, who tweeted a screenshot of an option on Instagram to “Create your own stickers” with directions to “Enter a phrase to generate custom stickers using AI.”

After receiving customized stickers, users can then share the visuals with their followers in the app, a development that could see more people using generative AI, especially if Meta inserts the same tools into Facebook as well, notes SocialMediaToday’s Andrew Hutchinson. 

Artificial intelligence is Meta’s new major talking point -- or “key theme” -- with CEO Mark Zuckerberg referencing AI at least 27 times in the company’s most recent earnings call, adding that the technology will “impact every single one of our apps and services.”

Zuckerberg went on to say that the company’s AI work has already boosted its family of apps, with Instagram seeing a 24% boost in the amount of time people spent on it after the company launched AI-powered Reels. 

As the tech giant explores chat experiences in WhatsApp and Messenger, visual creation tools for Facebook and Instagram posts and ads, Zuckerberg believes there is an opportunity to introduce AI to billions of people “in ways that will be useful and meaningful.”

Instagram has not announced anything further about the release of this generative AI tool, but Hutchinson thinks it could be launching “in the very near future.”