Meta AI’s Imagine features, which use generative AI to turn text prompts into images, are now being expanded across Facebook and Instagram, the company announced at Meta Connect 2024 on Wednesday. With the update, users will be able to use prompts to generate AI photos directly in their feed, Stories, and for their Facebook profile pictures.

The new capabilities could help users and creators call more attention to their posts and shares by allowing them to generate fanciful and eye-catching images to accompany their text. Once the images are shared, friends and followers can see them and react to them or even mimic them, Meta says.

Facebook users already upload photos of characters, animals, or something else besides their own photo as their profile picture to better protect their privacy. Now they won’t have to seek out such a photo: They can simply generate one.

The AI can also suggest captions for Stories on Facebook and Instagram, as a part of this update.

The image generation capabilities will come to Messenger, too, to create personalized chat themes. This is accessed by tapping on “Themes” in the chat. Before, users could change the background of their chats as well as the color of the text bubbles, but Meta AI offers far more options in terms of the types of images that can be used.

Meta says it’s also testing new AI-generated content in Facebook and Instagram feeds where it will display AI images created for users based on interests and trends.

This is largely designed to push people to try Meta AI by tapping on a suggested prompt to reimagine the photo or by swiping to generate content in real time using Meta Imagine AI.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg remarked during the event that Meta AI differentiates itself not only by offering “state-of-the-art AI models but also unlimited access to those models for free, integrated easily into our different products and apps,” he said.

“So Meta AI is on track to being the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of this year. In fact, it’s probably already there. … We’re almost at 500 million monthly actives, and we haven’t even launched in some of the bigger countries yet,” Zuckerberg added.

Meta AI is starting to catch up with Google when it comes to AI-powered photo editing. On Wednesday, at the Meta Connect 2024 conference, the tech giant announced that Meta AI will now be able to help you edit photos using AI technology and answer questions about the photos you share.

The additional features are made possible because Meta AI is gaining multimodal capabilities, powered by its Llama 3.2 models. This means you can now share photos in your chats, not just text, similar to Google Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

When sharing a photo, Meta AI can understand what the image contains and answer questions about the image. For example, Meta suggests you could share a photo of a flower and then ask the AI what type of flower it is. Or you could share a photo of a delicious dish and ask Meta AI how to make it. Of course, how accurately Meta AI responds to these and other questions still needs to be tested and reviewed.

Another key feature with the added photo support is the ability to edit images using AI.

After sending Meta AI the photo, you can ask it to make some sort of change — like adding or removing an object in the foreground, changing your outfit, or updating the background of the photo in some way, like adding a rainbow to the sky, for instance.

Meta AI can also be used on Instagram when you reshare a photo from your feed to your Instagram Stories. Here, the AI technology can look at the photo, understand the images, then generate an accompanying background for your Story.

Beyond photo edits, Meta is also testing translation tools for Facebook and Instagram Reels that include automatic dubbing and lip-syncing. These tests will initially be run in small groups in the U.S. and Latin America in both English and Spanish.

Other Meta AI photo features include the expansion of Meta AI’s generative AI features and the rollout of tests of Meta AI images shared to your Facebook and Instagram feeds, to prompt users to try the feature.

Fine text during Meta’s demo noted the editing features were coming to the U.S. in English first.

Noted Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the event, “Meta AI differentiates itself in this category by not just offering state-of-the-art AI models, but also unlimited access to those models for free, integrated easily into our different products and apps,” he said. “So Meta AI is on track to being the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of this year. In fact, it’s probably already there. … We’re almost at 500 million monthly actives, and we haven’t even launched in some of the bigger countries yet,” Zuckerberg added.

Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday during Meta Connect 2024 that Meta AI is one of the most used AI assistant across the world with “almost” 500 million monthly active users. Zuckerberg said that Meta AI is on track to become the most used assistant across the world.

“We’re almost at 500 million monthly activities, and we haven’t even launched in some of the bigger countries yet,” Zuckerberg said at the event, pointing out that it hasn’t launched in the EU yet.

Meta had previously noted that there are more than 400 million monthly users across the world. The company’s CFO, Susan Li, said during the Q2 2024 call that India is Meta AI’s biggest market, largely thanks to WhatsApp, which has more than 500 million users in the country.

In comparison, OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot has more than 200 million weekly users.

Meta today announced a new family of models called Llama 3.2 with new multimodal capabilities. The company is also launching Llama 3.2 1B and 3B lightweight models — models that weren’t trained on European user data  — in Europe.

At the event, Meta also announced new celebrity voices and lip-synced translations to Meta AI. The company also extended its generative AI-powered “Imagine” feature across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger to create photos through prompts. Plus, Meta AI can understand your photos and give you answers about them and even edit them.

Meta Connect 2024 is a developer-centric event featuring a keynote from CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He showcased new hardware and software to support two of Meta’s big ambitions: AI and the metaverse. This included everything from new Quest headsets, updates to Meta’s Llama AI model, and even a new fully AR glasses prototype.

Meta Connect 2024 kicked off live at 10 a.m. PT Wednesday, September 25. You can watch the archive via Meta Connect’s site, on Meta’s developer Facebook page, and you can still dive into Horizon Worlds from your Meta Quest headset if you really want to feel the full immersion.

We’ll be compiling all of the announcements and reveals out of Meta Connect 2024 below and will keep it updated throughout the event and after as more reactions and analysis arrive.

In a surprise announcement, Zuckerberg dramatically revealed Orion, which Meta says will eventually become the company’s “first consumer full holographic AR glasses,” though they won’t be arriving on any consumers’ faces anytime soon. Touting Orion’s light weight, compatibility for hand-tracking and eye-tracking, and most ambitiously, a neural interface, Zuckerberg also touted some impressed, and famous, early testers (including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang). The Orion glasses were presented as the future of Meta’s AR efforts, with our own ongoing coverage of Meta Connect’s final big reveal here.

Meta’s reveal of the Quest 3S was indicated by several pre-event leaks and confirmed during Connect 2024. The Meta Quest 3S comes as a less expensive alternative to the Quest 3, starting at $299 for a 128GB version and 256GB for $399. The entirely wireless headset is compatible with the existing library of Quest apps and games, though Meta was particularly enthusiastic about its mixed-reality features. With the reveal of the Quest 3S, the Quest 3 will drop from $649 to $499. Get our early impressions of the new Quest 3S here ahead of its October 15 ship date.

Quest 2, Quest Pro discontinued

“With Quest 3S on the shelf, we’re officially winding down sales of Quest 2 and Pro. We’ll be selling our remaining headsets through the end of the year or until they’re gone, whichever comes first,” Meta told Dakidarts about the discontinuation of two of their headsets in the wake of the Quest 3S announcement.

Meta AI is finding its voice. Users can ask a question or otherwise chat with Meta AI out loud through Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram and get simulated vocal responses in return. The digital voice assistant will roll out with multiple voice options to choose from, including the AI voices of celebrities like Dame Judi Dench, John Cena, Awkwafina, Kristen Bell, and Keegan-Michael Key.

The reveal comes a day after OpenAI announced the long-awaited rollout of its Advanced Voice Mode feature, with a new look and five new voices. And speaking of vocal announcements, Zuckerberg touted that Meta AI now has 500 million users.

Meta’s multilingual Llama family of models has reached version 3.2, signifying that several Llama models are now multimodal. Llama 3.2 11B and 90B can interpret charts and graphs, caption images, and pinpoint objects in pictures given a simple description.

Llama 3.2 11B and 90B might be able to look at a map of a park and tell you how long a certain path is, or when the terrain could become steeper. Or, provided a graph showing a company’s revenue over the course of a year, the models can quickly spotlight the best-performing months of the bunch.

Notably, Llama 3.2 11B and 90B can’t be accessed in Europe due to the EU’s Act restrictions. As a result, several Meta AI features available elsewhere, like image analysis, are disabled for European users.

Ray-Ban’s Meta smart glasses are getting upgrades as the company continues to try and make the case that the smart glasses can become the next big consumer device. At the forefront of the pitch is the addition of real-time AI video processing, which lets you to ask the Ray-Ban Meta glasses questions about what it can see in front of you.

The sunglasses will also be getting a smartphone-like reminder feature; live language translation between English and French, Italian, or Spanish; and full integration with music streaming apps like Amazon Music, Audible, and iHeart Radio.

Yes, we know what Zuckerberg’s shirt says

Zuckerberg’s evolution into a self-made fashionista was on full display during Meta Connect, with a shirt that spelled out: “Act Zuck aut nihil,” which for those not well versed in Latin, translates to “either Zuck or nothing.” The phrase is originally associated with Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, further cementing Zuckerberg as a Rome Guy.

In a feature that will be familiar to anyone following OpenAI, Google, and Apple’s application of image-based searches, Meta showcased its AI’s capacity to respond to prompts based on images, as well as edit photos provided to the AI based on feedback given by the user. It can also share them to Instagram Stories.

More AI in your Facebook feeds

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably seen a lot of AIs recently, knowingly or unknowingly. There’s an entire nascent industry around using it to generate engagement bait. Earlier this month, the label noting whether content has been edited using Meta’s tools was shrunk down. And now Facebook will actually pitch you on AI content that it generates for you that it thinks you’ll want to share or engage with.

Tests for translated, dubbed content from creators

Going a step beyond just translating captions, Meta announced a test that would use its AI translation tools to take creator content, create a translated dub, and sync the creator’s lips accordingly. So far, the experiment is limited to creator videos made in the U.S. and Latin America, with translations between English and Spanish.

In what ended up being a surreal moment, Zuckerberg brought on creator Don Allen Stevenson III for a conversation on the stage, which then turned into a demo during which Zuckerberg interviewed an AI version of Stevenson while the real deal was right beside him.

Amid the big AI reveals and hardware and announcements, Meta did dive into the broader purpose of Connect — building ties with its community of developers. As it continues to pitch developers on helping build out the Quest app store’s offerings, Meta released new support for Android apps on the Quest, along with support for 3D and spatial apps.

Batman, Wordle, and the rest of the game’s announcements

A number of new experiences were revealed for the Quest ecosystem at Meta Connect 2024, led by Batman: Arkham Shadow, which launches October 22 and will also be bundled with new Quest 3 and 3S purchases until April of next year. Beyond games with familiar concepts like Alien: Rogue Incursion for Xenomorph-filled horror and a remake of the zombie game Arizona Sunshine, Wordle of all things was announced for the Quest. The VR version of the daily puzzle will be free to play without a New York Times subscription.