Meta, just days after the launch of its latest tool, pulled Muse AI from Instagram after backlash from users that said this latest tool violated privacy by having their photos become the source for its generated images.
On July 7, 2026, Meta announced through a blog the rollout of Muse AI, an artificial intelligence model from Meta Superintelligence Labs that aimed to become a creative tool for creators and advertisers to use through ‘simple prompts and high quality outputs.’
Its capabilities included AI-powered effects for Instagram Stories and image generation. In their blog post, it was also announced there were plans for Muse Video.
However, one feature of this AI tool is referencing public Instagram profiles, with these accounts becoming the source material for its image generations. This became a massive issue for the community, stating how they do not want their or their friends’ photos to become the reference for this AI tool, and how it is nonconsensual with the platform.
On Reddit, a post on the subreddit r/technology talked about the push back from users. ‘Meta looked at feeds already drowning in recycled posts, engagement bait, fake giveaways, stolen photos and AI slop, then decided the missing ingredient was letting people generate more of it with their friends’ public pictures,’ one user noted.
‘The tool itself is not the surprising part. The surprising part is still pretending that ‘you can turn it off in settings’ is meaningful consent for normal users,’ the user added. Still, other users pointed out that this was expected from the company, stating how users have been allowing the platform to use and ‘own’ their photos for over a decade.
Nevertheless, the amount of backlash from the users worked as Meta announced on July 10 that they will be pulling Muse AI from their platform.
‘Earlier this week, we announced that one way for people to generate images in Meta AI is by mentioning public Instagram accounts that they want to reference. Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give people control over whether their public content could be referenced in his way,’ its latest statement reads.
‘We’ve heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available,’ its update continued.