Stop Others Using Your Instagram Photos in AI Prompts: Here's How

On July 8, Meta launched Muse Image, an AI image generator now built into Meta AI, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It can do the typical text-to-image generative trick, but one feature in particular is causing controversy: Anyone can mention (@) a public Instagram account inside the Meta AI app, and it will use that account's photos as the basis of an AI-generated image.

If your Instagram account is public, you're opted into this by default. In other words, other people can feed your photos into their prompts to build event invitations, mockups, or whatever else they can think up, and you won't even get a notification when they do. The same goes for your reels and feed videos. Anything's up for grabs.

Private accounts are left out entirely, so what you post there remains off-limits to Muse Image. But if you'd rather keep a public profile and still block any sort of AI reuse, there's a dedicated setting to achieve it. It's worth changing now, because anything created before you opt out won't be deleted afterwards.

Here's how to turn it off:

1. Open the Instagram app and go to your profile.
2. Tap the menu button in the top corner, then tap Settings and activity.
3. Scroll to Sharing and Reuse.
4. Under "Allow people to create with and reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features at Meta," toggle off both Posts and Reels.

That's it. With both toggles off, your photos and reels can no longer be tagged into other people's AI creations.

Bear in mind that Muse Image is still rolling out, and so is the opt-out control, so if you don't see the "Sharing and Reuse" options yet, check back in a day or two, as they should appear as the feature reaches your account.