TikTok Adds More Gen AI Features

Do you want to know why TikTok was such a hit among users and why it managed to catch up so quickly and even supplant Instagram in many aspects?

Because TikTok is simply better, in almost every way, with its algorithms, systems and processes that consistently deliver a better user experience, whether through quick discovery of your new interests, a better user interface for connecting and communicating, and even simplified in-app purchases, which gradually captures more and more users.

And that extends to AI as well, with TikTok continuing to add more AI features that go beyond chatbots and AI profiles, which have no real purpose in most people’s everyday use.

Instead, TikTok has launched a series of helpful, complementary AI features that tune in to usage trends, as opposed to trying to force you to generate random garbage images.

Indeed, over the past month, TikTok has continued to expand its generative AI elements, with the addition of options like “AI Group Shot” tool.which allows users to add pictures of themselves and their friends to a picture template.

It’s a fun way to incorporate generative AI for a specific purpose, instead of just generating images from generic queries, while “AI Self” option. it’s also more aligned with improving your personal experience.

Of course, Meta has something similar, with its own Artificial intelligence asks “Imagine yourself”. which can be accessed through its AI chatbot:

But Meta’s AI images look less realistic and less about stitching together actual representations of yourself and more aligned with hyper-real creations, which don’t connect to your own or anyone else’s real-world experiences.

Which is key for a “social” media app. Social experiences are generally things we want to share about ourselves and our own thoughts and feelings, our own experiences.

This makes Meta’s random AI prompts in stream just feel flat.

Since none of these are about anything real, they are not real human experiences and they are not focused on things you or I have done. They’re just completely random, trying to get Facebook and IG users to create pictures of all sorts of things, seemingly just because you can.

Meanwhile, TikTok’s AI options are tied to the app’s core focus, connecting and entertaining people across an extensive set of community trends.

And TikTok is working on more AI tools to go along with that, including the ability to easily convert your own images into trending memes.

Although it is also developing improvements to its editing and creation tools, including AI-powered video description suggestions.

This could help you maximize your content opportunities by giving you headline suggestions that align with in-app search trends.

And again, these are all AI tools that enhance the user experience, rather than trying to transform it into something else.

What made TikTok win the social media race and why it will be a huge loss in the US if it is indeed taken down as a result US Government Sale Account.

And while Meta continues to chase tech trends and extract more engagement from its users wherever it can, it’s examples like these that highlight where Meta regularly misses, even if it eventually makes up for it through replication.

Meta just doesn’t have the same audience as other apps.

Here’s a question: “What’s the last big innovation that Meta launched in its social apps that wasn’t copied from another app?”

Mirroring the direction of other apps ultimately steers it in the right direction, but it’s this gap that has continually allowed competitors to bite into its market dominance.

(Thanks Lindsey Gamble and Radu Oncesc for recording the above mentioned AI plugins)