Google launches Video Remix, an artificial intelligence video editing tool

Meta has introduced Muse Image, a new artificial intelligence model integrated into Instagram. This feature allows Meta AI to use photos from public profiles as a basis for generating new images.

How Meta's Strategy Works

According to Wired, Muse Image, developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs, is part of Meta's strategy to compete in the AI image creation market. The mechanism is simple: by referencing a public profile in a creation prompt, any individual can request an image inspired by that user's appearance.

The company claims that the tool's purpose is to expand creative capabilities, citing examples such as producing personalized invitations, developing collaborative visual concepts, and generating graphics from publicly accessible images. Meta itself stated that tagging a username allows Meta AI to use public photos to create an image ready for dissemination, whether for an invitation or a graphic.

Automatic Configuration and Disabling Options

This feature is automatically activated for public accounts. Therefore, those who wish to prevent such use must look for the disabling option in the account settings. The types of content that can serve as references include photos posted on open profiles, images shared on Instagram, videos published on Reels, and other content used in Meta AI creations.

This permission modification can be done directly in the Instagram app without needing to make the account private. The user must access their profile, tap the three lines in the upper right corner, and navigate to the 'Sharing and reuse' section. There, they need to find and adjust the option titled 'Allow people to use your content on Instagram and with Meta AI features,' where they can disable the use of posts and Reels in future tool creations.

Limitations and Privacy Concerns

Instagram's Help Center clarifies that if the default setting is maintained, 'people may create content using your Instagram content through Meta AI features.' It is important to note that disabling this option only prevents future use of the content; it does not delete the AI images that were previously generated using the user's photos.

Additionally, Instagram does not notify users when third parties use Meta's features to create images from another person's public content. The platform's help page confirms: 'You will not be notified about content created with Meta AI features.' The launch of Muse Image highlights the integration of generative tools into social networks, raising user concerns about control over their own images.

The social network X has introduced a native video editor in the iPhone application, aiming to encourage creators to publish original material directly on the platform, reducing dependence on reposted videos from other sources.

Features of the New Tool

This new tool, released this week for iPhone, allows users to record and edit content within the same environment. The initiative seeks to make the platform more functional for those who produce videos on X, thus competing with video-focused networks like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, after already implementing the infinite scroll characteristic of short videos.

Nikita Bier, the network's head of product, stated in a post that future improvements will be added to the editor in the coming weeks. However, the feature is not yet available for Android, as the application for the Google system is undergoing a reconstruction process, according to Bier.

Resources Available for Creators

Among the features included in the novelty are overlaid subtitles in various languages, options to customize text appearance, and green screen features. With the green screen, it is possible to use images from the gallery or existing posts on X as a background for the video.

Bier emphasized that one of the priorities is to provide creators with the necessary tools to produce authentic content and, consequently, reward them. He mentioned that video posts already account for almost half of the impressions on the social network.

Additionally, the tool is expected to incorporate features from X's Media Studio in the future, a solution aimed at businesses to manage and organize audiovisual content and static images, such as GIFs. The executive declared the goal of offering complete support without the user having to leave the application.

Efforts Against Recycled Content

The arrival of this editor occurs in a context where X is trying to mitigate the dissemination of reused content or content appropriated from other networks. According to Bier, many large accounts continue to use third-party materials, sometimes years after the initial success of the videos.

The executive pointed out that this practice has become even more frequent due to the incentives granted to profile engagement on the microblog, especially with monetization for verified accounts. Despite this, X still lacks tools as advanced as those of its competitors for creators to identify, report, or prevent the unauthorized republication of their original content.

Networks belonging to Mark Zuckerberg, for example, have intensified their fight against copycats since 2024. Currently, Reels creators can restrict the visibility of unauthorized repurposed content or add attribution links. YouTube also has similar mechanisms, as reported by TechCrunch.

An additional challenge lies in the presence of bots, which can artificially increase views, steal videos, and distort engagement metrics, making it difficult to build a reliable monetization ecosystem.

The first half of 2026 was a period of significant transformation for artificial intelligence involved in image and video generation. Both global and Chinese developers released major updates, which changed the competitive landscape. The industry moved away from simple content creation towards developing comprehensive solutions for workflows, exemplified by ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 model and Midjourney's specialized anime model.

January: New Capabilities from Market Leaders

January was marked by the release of Midjourney Niji 7, which improved the detail and consistency of the anime style, although text rendering remained a weakness. Google updated Veo 3.1 with the Ingredients to Video feature, allowing reference images to control objects, textures, backgrounds, and characters, while also supporting native vertical output up to 4K. Zhipu AI open-sourced GLM-Image—a hybrid architecture with 16 billion parameters that combines 9B autoregressive components and 7B diffusion components to improve text rendering quality. Furthermore, Luma AI released Ray 3.14, providing native 1080p output with four times faster generation and a threefold cost reduction. Tencent introduced HunyuanImage-3.0 in Instruct and Distil variants; the Distil version is optimized for more efficient deployment by reducing sampling steps, though this requires significant memory.

February: Dominance of Chinese Developers

February saw activity from Chinese companies. Kuaishou launched Kling AI 3.0, which supports 2K and 4K image generation, along with improved narrative control in video and multi-frame consistency with native audio. Alibaba presented Qwen-Image-2.0, capable of processing instructions up to 1000 tokens, targeting the creation of text-rich content such as infographics, posters, and presentations, with strong multilingual text rendering. ByteDance's Seed team introduced Seedance 2.0—a unified multimodal architecture for audio-video generation that accepts text, image, audio, and video inputs, utilizing up to 9 reference images, 3 video clips, and 3 audio clips to create multi-frame audiovisual content up to 15 seconds long. This model demonstrated outstanding capabilities in cinematic language and motion physics, but immediately sparked discussions regarding copyright and intellectual property.

March–June: Continuation of Evolution and Trends

The period from March to June was characterized by further technological development. ByteDance released Seedream 5.0 Lite, focusing on deep reasoning to enhance generation accuracy, including improvements through real-time search. Google introduced Nano Banana 2, positioning it as a faster and more economical alternative to the Pro version. Kunlun's SkyReels-V4 model ranked second globally in text-to-video tasks excluding audio. ByteDance also unveiled Seedance RL, a video model with reasoning elements that uses reinforcement learning to improve action quality. Xiaomi launched MiaoMi for creating AI comics. Anthropic demonstrated impressive cinematic generation capabilities with Claude Mythos 5, ensuring character consistency across scenes. Kling AI opened its API marketplace. Alibaba Cloud released Happy Horse 1.1, aimed at quality suitable for short dramatic plots and advertising. Overall, the industry showed a clear trend: models are transforming from autonomous generation tools into integrated workflow platforms that support multi-reference inputs, native sound, and precise motion control throughout the content production process.