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Meta on Friday retired an artificial intelligence feature that allowed users to generate images by browsing public Instagram accounts, days after introducing the tool as part of Instagram’s broader rollout of AI-powered creative features.
The company announced this decision in an update on its Instagram blog.
“Earlier this week, we announced that one of the ways people can generate images with Meta AI is by @mentioning the public Instagram account they want to reference,” the company wrote. “Our goal was to provide a useful creative tool and give people control over whether their published content can be viewed in this way. We’ve heard feedback that this feature misses the mark, so it’s no longer available.”
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The feature was announced Tuesday along with more than 30 new AI-powered effects for Instagram Stories powered by Meta Superintelligence Labs’ first image generation model, Muse Image. Instagram says new effects let users transform photos with a single tap, and a redesigned editing composer lets users preview AI-generated edits before sharing.
As part of the rollout, Meta also introduced the ability for users to @mention public Instagram accounts in Meta AI and generate creative images featuring those accounts, such as personalized birthday cards, group travel memes, and other edited images.
“We want to give our community control over how their content is used in creation,” Instagram said in an announcement Tuesday. According to the company, users who don’t want to use Instagram’s public content through AI features can disable them through the app’s share and reuse settings.
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SAG-AFTRA, which represents performers in film, television and other media, on Thursday urged its members to opt out of the feature, writing on social media: “Please take steps to protect your likeness.”
Neil K. Shah, an NIH-funded long-term care researcher and CEO of CareYaya, said he has already seen AI-generated ads exploiting his likeness to promote supplements falsely claiming to help people with dementia.
“I think the big wake-up call for me was seeing the fraud actually happening in real time,” Shah told FOX Business. He said his followers started messaging him after seeing ads that seemed to endorse products he had never promoted.
“All the elderly are being scammed, my image is being used to deceive them and there is nothing I can do about it,” Shah said, adding that he had spent hours replying to his followers warning them that the ad was fake.
Shah said he has since started warning viewers in his videos not to trust ads that appear to promote his products, and has spent hours answering followers who ask if the endorsements are genuine. He also said he repeatedly reported the ads to Meta, but the ads remained on the platform.
Friday’s update removes the ability to generate images by @mentioning a public Instagram account, while keeping the broader rollout of Instagram’s new AI-powered creative tools.
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Meta has put artificial intelligence at the heart of its business, investing heavily in AI infrastructure and the Llama family of AI models, while extending AI-powered capabilities across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
In response to a request for comment from FOX Business, Meta directed Fox Business to Instagram’s latest blog post announcing the change.
