Your social media profile pic is a central part of your online identity. A sexy selfie can help you bag a date on Tinder; a still from your fave movie can express your personality on Twitter; and a sun-kissed pic can help you stand out on Instagram.
But, beyond beautifying or cartoonish filters, there are few tools available natively inside apps that can spruce up your profile photo. Now, TikTok wants to change that.
The video-sharing app is working on a feature that will let you create AI-generated profile pictures in a range of different art styles. Social media consultant Matt Navarra tweeted images and video of the tool, which will be available inside TikTok.
Here’s how it will work: TikTok will ask you to upload between three to 10 images of yourself to generate up to 30 avatars.
You’ll then be able to pick from two to five different art styles for your profile image, ranging from watercolour paintings to comic book art and gaming-style avatars. We spotted at least one avatar that looked like a Fortnite character, which is bound to be a hit with gamers.
TikTok will then use this info to create a set of images, allowing you to download one, several or all of the AI-generated pics. Plus, you’ll be given the option to share one in a TikTok story. The tool will be available once per day, and TikTok will apparently delete your images from its server after 30 days, according to Navarra.
TikTok has a NEW generative AI avatar creator! 🤖🎨📷
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) April 25, 2023
View thread to see what it can do 👇 pic.twitter.com/TDBbwok6bt
No stranger to security concerns, TikTok likely doesn’t want to be embroiled in any more regulatory investigations over sensitive facial data. After all, the new feature is reminiscent of the controversial AI photo-generation apps that have periodically gone viral, and raised alarm bells over their handling of user info.
FaceApp, for instance, faced accusations that it retained photos to train its facial recognition tech — a claim it denied. While rival app Lensa AI can apparently do whatever it wants with the artwork produced from your photographs.
The timing of the update is odd as TikTok recently banned some forms of AI-generated content, such as deepfakes. Then again, these profile avatars seem like a pretty harmless use case for the tech that users may end up having a lot of fun with.
For once, Facebook may have beaten TikTok to the punch after briefly introducing AI-style transfers for live video all the way back in 2016. Don’t be surprised if Instagram ends up poaching the AI profile avatars feature soon.
