Instagram now offers AI-generated backgrounds on Stories

Every day, there seems to be new generative AI news, and while it can often be serious and quite technical, this time around it's just plain fun. Instagram has launched a new generative AI-powered tool called backdrop that lets you create a new image in the, yes, background of your Story. Meta's generative AI lead, Ahmad Al-Dahle, announced the feature on Threads alongside a video tutorial.

Instagram's backdrop tool appears once you upload or capture content for your Story. It sits alongside existing icons at the top of your screen, like text and music, represented by an image of a person with a rectangular frame behind them. To use backdrop, just click on that icon, and the image's entire background will go checkered (similar to picture editors like PhotoShop) along with a text box prompting you to "describe the backdrop you want..." From there, you can add anything from "surrounded by puppies" to "chased by dinosaurs" — very different vibes — and the AI tool will generate it in the background.

Don't expect people to actually think you're hanging out under the aurora borealis (another possible prompt), as your Story will get tagged with AI·Backdrop by Instagram, along with a sticker saying try it and your description in quotation marks. Currently, Instagram's backdrop tool is only available to users in the United States.