Facebook adds new AI features, animated profile photos, and backgrounds for text posts

Facebook announced new AI-powered features on Tuesday designed to let users express themselves in more playful ways across the platform. The updates include animated profile pictures, photo-restyling tools for Stories and Memories, and the ability to add animated backgrounds to text posts.

​As Meta works to maintain Facebook’s relevance among younger users on its flagship app, it’s likely betting that these new features will deliver a more personalized experience that appeals to Gen Z.

​The new animated profile picture feature applies motion effects to static photos, making the subject appear to be waving, making a heart shape, or wearing a virtual party hat. To achieve the best results, Facebook recommends using a clear photo of a single person facing the camera. Photos can be pulled directly from a user’s camera roll or from images already on the platform. The company also plans to add more animation options throughout the year.

​Facebook is also enhancing its Stories — short photo and video posts that disappear after 24 hours — and Memories — a feature that resurfaces posts from the same date in previous years — with “Restyle,” a tool that uses Meta AI to reimagine the look of user-uploaded images.

After uploading a photo to Stories or selecting a Memory to share, users can tap Restyle and either enter a text-based prompt or select from preset themes, including anime, illustrated, glowy, ethereal, and more. There are also options to adjust moods, lighting, and colors, and to swap in new backdrops such as a beach or a cityscape. 

​To spice up text posts, Facebook is also gradually rolling out animated backgrounds. By clicking on the new rainbow “A” icon, users can choose from a variety of still and animated scenes, such as falling leaves or rolling ocean waves, to make their posts stand out in the feed. The company says that seasonal backgrounds are coming soon.

​With around 2.1 billion daily active users, Facebook remains a social media giant. However, in recent years, it has struggled to attract and retain a younger demographic.

To address this, the platform has embraced new technology, including AI, and introduced a more youthful redesign. Other recent updates include a friends-only feed and the ability to use unique display names within Groups, similar to how Reddit handles usernames in its communities. The platform is also attempting to make its poke feature — a way to tap another user on the shoulder, so to speak — relevant again by launching a new dedicated button on users’ profiles that alerts the recipient to a poke via notifications.