Meta adds AI animation tools to Facebook to court Gen Z

On Tuesday, Facebook announced a series of new AI-powered features designed to let users express themselves in more playful ways. The updates introduce animated profile pictures, photo-restyling tools, and animated backgrounds for text posts. The platform’s parent company, Meta, is 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. To achieve the best results with these animated profile pictures, Facebook recommends using a clear photo of a single person facing the camera. The company plans to add more animation options throughout the year.

Additionally, Facebook is enhancing Stories—which are short photo and video posts that disappear after 24 hours—and Memories—a feature that resurfaces posts from the same date in previous years. It is doing so with “Restyle,” an AI tool for image editing that uses Meta AI to reimagine the look of user-uploaded images. To spice up text posts, the platform is also gradually rolling out animated backgrounds, with seasonal backgrounds coming soon.

With around 2.1 billion daily active users, Facebook remains a social media giant, but it continues to work to maintain relevance among younger demographics. To address this, the platform has embraced new technology and introduced a series of updates. These include a friends-only feed, a dedicated button to make its “poke” feature—which allows users to tap another user on the shoulder via notification—relevant again, and the ability to use unique display names within Groups. This group display name feature functions similarly to how Reddit handles usernames in its communities.

Why it matters

As Meta works to maintain Facebook’s relevance among younger users, it is likely betting that these new AI-driven personalization features will deliver the experience necessary to capture Gen Z’s attention.