Meta has launched Muse Image, a new AI image-generation model that lets users incorporate photos from public Instagram accounts into AI-generated images by simply tagging a username in a prompt.
The feature has sparked privacy concerns because public Instagram accounts are enrolled by default, requiring users to manually opt out if they do not want their content used for AI image creation.
The new model is the first image-generation system developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs and now powers image creation across the Meta AI app, Instagram Stories, and WhatsApp, with support for Facebook and Messenger planned. While Muse Image introduces several creative features, attention quickly shifted to its ability to generate images using the public photos of other Instagram users.
The issue was widely reported by impacted users with public Instagram profiles, who were automatically opted into the feature.
Users can disable this by navigating to Profile → Menu → Sharing and reuse and turning off reuse for both Posts and Reels.
Meta describes the feature as a way to “bring specific Instagram profiles right into your images.” By @mentioning an Instagram account in a prompt, Meta AI can use that account's public photos to “build a visual” that users can download or share across Meta's platforms.
Instagram's updated help documentation confirms that users with public accounts are, by default, eligible for AI reuse. The company states that “people may be able to create content with your Instagram content using AI features at Meta” and explicitly notes that users will not be notified when their content is used this way.
The documentation also outlines several limitations of the controls. Disabling reuse only affects future AI creations and does not remove images that have already been generated. Likewise, switching an account from public to private removes remixes and reused posts on Instagram after a grace period, but does not delete AI-generated content that was previously created from those public photos.
Meta says the behavior is governed by Instagram's existing reuse settings. Public accounts allow reuse by default, while private accounts are excluded. Users can disable reuse at the account level or on individual posts, though account-wide changes only apply to future uploads. For users under 18 with public accounts, the default audience is more restrictive, limiting reuse to people they follow.
Beyond Instagram profile tagging, Muse Image offers conventional AI image generation and editing capabilities, including prompt-based image creation, sketch-annotated image editing, AI-powered Instagram Story effects, room redesigns using products from Facebook Marketplace and the web, and preset prompts for common image transformations. Meta also says the model can generate images containing legible text and perform more complex multi-image compositions by combining Muse Image with its Muse Spark language model.
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