Meta Platforms launched Muse Image on July 7, 2026, its first AI image-generation model produced by its Superintelligence Labs division, led by Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang. The model is rolling out inside the Meta AI chatbot as well as Instagram and WhatsApp, with expansion to Facebook and Messenger planned. Users can generate images from text prompts or instruct the model to alter existing pictures, and Meta said Muse Image operates as an agent that invokes search and coding tools, self-refines its own generations, and improves by scaling test-time compute.
The launch marks the second major release from Meta Superintelligence Labs under Wang's leadership, following the April 2026 unveiling of the Muse Spark large language model, which succeeded the company's Llama family. The technology was originally developed under the internal codename Mango. Free access to Muse Image is available via the Meta AI app and meta.ai, WhatsApp direct messages, and Instagram Stories in the United States, while power users are required to subscribe to Meta One, a monthly subscription plan launched in May. Meta also confirmed plans to release an AI video generation model called Muse Video at a later date.
For advertisers, Muse Image will power image-generation tools within Meta's Advantage+ service for developing ad creative, with access to the model expected to follow the consumer rollout. Until now, image generation inside Meta AI had been handled by outside vendors including Midjourney and Black Forest Labs; the Muse Image launch is intended to bring that work in-house. The model includes Content Seal, an invisible watermarking system that embeds a hidden provenance signal designed to remain intact when images are cropped, compressed, resized, or screenshotted. Instagram users with public accounts are automatically included in a feature that allows others to tag their photos in AI-generated images, with an opt-out available.
Meta Platforms shares (META) closed 2.6% higher on July 7, 2026, after earlier trading up as much as 4.2%. The session followed a roughly 3% gain the prior day. Meta brought Wang in from Scale AI at a reported cost of $14 billion to lead its rebuilt AI laboratory. The company reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $56.31 billion, up 33.08% year-over-year, with earnings per share of $10.44 against a consensus estimate of $6.66, and has raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion.
Sources: Bloomberg, The Verge, Wired, CNBC, Meta AI, Yahoo Finance