Background editor is spearheaded by Ahmad Al-Dahle, Meta's lead for Artificial Intelligence that is generative. In a blog post on Threads, Al-Dahle declared that the software allows users to make the creation of new backgrounds for their stories, opening up creative new possibilities.

"With backdrop, it's possible to reimagine your image's background with just two taps and a prompt like 'chased by dinosaurs' or 'surrounded by puppies' to create an entirely new background to use in your Story. Press the button for background at the top of your new Story to begin with a backdrop,'" the author wrote. Users can also create their personalized prompts.

You can now test the Instagram "Try it" stickers

Once posted to stories, the AI-generated backgrounds will include a "Try the background" sticker, so that other users can attempt similar prompts to test on their images.

The new feature builds on Instagram's expanding collection of AI products, which include the ability to create creative images that are already available on Snapchat as well as other Meta platforms like Messenger as well as WhatsApp. Earlier this month, Meta rolled out a similar AI image maker known as Imagine as well, and Snapchat unveiled paid features enabling users to make fantasy-themed images.

As AI image generation technology advances social platforms are rushing to build the functionality into their apps. Instagram hopes that features such as an editor for backgrounds will distinguish it from its competitors but ethical concerns about deepfakes continue to swirl around AI-powered tools for creativity.

Generative AI refers to a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content on its own instead of merely analyzing existing content. "Generative," as in the "generative" part is the fact that these AI systems can create new images, texts, audio, video, and other types of data that have never been seen before.

Generative AI relies on deep-learning algorithms, specifically one of the subsets of AI methods known as neural nets. To discover patterns and concepts, neural networks are trained on massive amounts of data, often comprising millions or billions of examples. Once the generative AI model is sufficiently developed, it can use its learned skills to create unique creative and unique creations based on the patterns it has observed in its data of training.