Instagram Previews Coming AI Video Elements

Meta is very keen to make AI a more prominent part of the social media experience, whether you like it or notAnd in that vein, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri today gave an insight into some upcoming video AI elements coming to IG.

Yes, soon, through integration with Meta’s Movie Gen engineInstagram users will be able to make massive changes to their videos in the stream, changing different backgrounds, clothes, views, Muppet versions of themselves, etc.

Which is certainly interesting and could lead to some new creative trends. But it also feels like a step away from the “social” aspect of social media, in terms of real, human connection and shared experiences.

Because this will not represent your lived experiences. The AI ​​renderings that Meta keeps pushing into the stream are just made-up images and video that have little to do with your life or creativity. Video editing feels a bit more streamlined, as it will still include your own recorded content, and I can see how this could be used to create more compelling clips, with visual storytelling elements and enhancements that could help build your post.

But AI image generation, less so.

The generation of images by artificial intelligence seems like an interesting innovation, but I don’t see it as a complementary element, in most cases, within the connection of social media. Like, sure, you can generate a picture of an alien, but it doesn’t represent anything real, and sure, you can generate a picture of a beach you want to go to, but it’s not as good as an actual picture from the real thing you made.

Meta’s AI video tools provide improvements and will lead to new creative forms within the app, and you can imagine that some people will find this extremely valuable.

But still, storytelling remains key, and human connection remains key. Social media is, at heart, social, and without that crucial aspect of connection, it’s just short-lived entertainment, with images and videos flashing through our brains and confusing our inner circles.

What will happen to the AI ​​gene anyway, as they enable strange, surreal, impossible creations that mess with our minds. Some oddities are inevitable, but without a central thread, a story that ties things together, a narrative we can identify with. Without it, you’re just creating things for their own sake.

And that will happen too, as people experiment with these new options, but the true sustainable value of such creations will be in their purpose and use to enhance the communication of the human story.

Get the story right and these could be great complementary features. Otherwise, these are just novelties that will not resonate.