Meta is a surprising pivot in the world of social apps. I’m testing the standalone version of Vibes. This is a feature that allows users to create and discover AI-generated short videos, giving it a dedicated home outside of the broader Meta AI app. The move, first reported by TechCrunch, reflects Meta’s belief that AI-generated video content may be attractive enough to warrant a dedicated space on mobile phones.
First launched within the Meta AI experience in September 2025, Vibes uses AI tools to generate or remix short vertical clips, allowing you to browse feeds made entirely of composite videos. Rather than watching humans film themselves, all the content you encounter in Vibes is created, or at least significantly shaped, by AI. The feed has received enough attention that Meta now wants to see how the concept plays out as a separate app with a more focused environment for video creation and discovery.
What Meta wants from a standalone Vibes app
Splitting Vibes into its own application can serve multiple purposes. One is to give Meta a cleaner, single-purpose platform that’s easier to build AI-generated video experiences on than pushing them into a multi-purpose AI assistant. Mehta said users are increasingly leaning into the format, creating, discovering and sharing AI-generated clips with friends at an increasing rate. However, to be fair, the company has not released exact usage numbers yet.
The standalone app’s focus on synthetic vertical video puts it in more direct competition with other emerging AI video platforms, such as OpenAI’s Sora, which also combines social feeds with AI content creation tools. Giving Vibes its own identity allows Meta to experiment with features specific to video creation, discovery algorithms, and even monetization paths such as freemium subscriptions that unlock more advanced creation tools in the future.
Meta is currently testing Vibes in select markets, and while the rollout has been modest so far, early interest suggests the company sees a future where AI-generated media becomes a core creative format rather than just a side project. It remains to be seen whether users will accept a world where every scroll is an algorithmic idea of entertainment rather than a clip of someone’s reality.
