Meta launched Muse Image on July 7, 2026, and while it’s an exciting development, buried inside all the announcements is something that deserves a closer look.
If your Instagram account is public, strangers can use your photos to generate AI images of you via Muse Image. More importantly, it’s switched on by default.
How does this actually work?
Muse Image, Meta’s new in-house AI image model, lets users @-mention any public Instagram account inside a prompt (as a creative reference).
From there, Meta AI pulls photos from that profile and uses them as visual references to generate new images that incorporate that person’s likeness, without asking for consent or sending a notification.
Meta’s own help page confirms it plainly. “You will not be notified about content created using AI features at Meta,” it reads. So someone could be generating AI images using your face right now, and you’d have absolutely no way of knowing, unless they show up somewhere.
Instagram’s help center also mentions another warning. If your account is public and on default settings, “people may be able to create content with your Instagram content using AI features at Meta.”
What can you actually do about it?
You can opt out, but the process isn’t exactly straightforward.
Open Instagram, go to your profile, tap the three lines in the top-right corner, scroll to Sharing and reuse, and toggle off both Posts and Reels under the “Allow people to use your content on Instagram and with AI features on Meta” section.
Wired noted that as of Tuesday afternoon, some accounts hadn’t yet seen the updated language for settings, so it may take time to reach users. Here’s the catch, though. Opting out stops future AI generations using your content, but any images already created will not be deleted.
Going private has the same limitation. Meta does include an invisible watermarking system called Content Seal in Muse Image outputs, but that only helps verify AI origin. It doesn’t give you any control over what’s already been made.