Meta just dropped a new AI image tool. The backlash was immediate.
On Tuesday, Meta unveiled Muse Image, a free AI image generator built by the company’s dedicated AI unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs. The tool, internally code-named Mango, is now live inside the Meta AI app, Instagram Stories, and WhatsApp.
But almost as soon as the news broke, users started sounding alarms — not over what Muse can create, but over what it can grab.
The feature that’s got everyone talking: remixing your photos
Muse works like most other AI image generators. You type a prompt, you get a cartoonish or stylized picture. It comes with “presets” — prefab prompts meant to spark ideas. Nothing unusual there.
The problem is this: you can tag another Instagram user whose profile is public, and Muse will pull their photo into a new AI-generated image. No notification. No permission request. Just a few taps, and someone’s face ends up in a scene they never agreed to.
One X user put it bluntly after The Verge flagged the issue: “Pulling real users into generated photos without explicit consent is a privacy landmine waiting to detonate.”
Meta’s own policy admits as much: “People may be able to create content with your Instagram content using AI features at Meta. You will not be notified about content created using AI features at Meta.”
The company insists users “have control.” There are settings to disable this kind of co-option of your pictures. But the feature is opt-out by default — meaning your photos are fair game unless you dig into the settings and turn it off.
Muse isn’t just about photos — it’s also about ads and furniture
Not every Muse feature is controversial. The tool has practical, less invasive applications.
You can use it to create custom ads — AI has been creeping into advertising for a while, and this is Meta’s latest push. There’s also an interior-decorating angle: in a promotional video, a user snaps a secondhand couch and asks Muse to visualize it inside their garage. That function ties directly into Facebook Marketplace, Meta’s hub for used furniture and odds and ends.
Muse also supports prompt-based image editing. Meta says you can, for example, “mock up an image of you in front of a historical landmark, cleanly erase a photobomber from the background of a shot, or write a custom prompt to build a functional QR code.”
Instagram Stories get AI effects too
Alongside Muse, Meta is rolling out new AI effects for Instagram Stories — powered by the same model. These include customizable filters that can modify existing photos. It’s the same platform at the center of the photo-tagging concerns, which means the privacy questions don’t go away.
Free for now — but there’s a catch
Meta says Muse is free for “everyday creation.” But once you cross a certain usage threshold, you’ll need a subscription. The company hasn’t said what that limit is or how much it will cost.
Also in the pipeline: Muse Video, an AI video generator that Meta says is “already in development.” TechCrunch has reached out for more details.
This fits a pattern — and Meta’s privacy record looms large
Meta has released a lot of AI tools in the past year: an assistant called Creator, and Pocket, an app for vibe-coding video games. The company’s AI strategy has been called nebulous, but it’s still spending heavily on infrastructure.
But the unease over Muse isn’t just about this one feature. It’s about trust — or the lack of it.
In 2019, Meta paid a then-record $5 billion fine to the FTC after regulators found that Cambridge Analytica had improperly harvested data from tens of millions of Facebook users without their knowledge, building voter-targeting profiles ahead of the 2016 U.S. election. Facebook had known about the data misuse for years before it went public.
Then, in 2021, Meta shut down its facial-recognition system — a tool that automatically recognized people in photos and videos — after lawsuits and regulatory pressure over biometric data collection.
Muse’s photo-tagging feature, which is opt-out by default, fits that same pattern: broad use of people’s data unless they actively turn it off. For many users, it feels less like a creative tool and more like a replay of old mistakes.
