TikTok AI Alive is a new image-to-video feature that can add sequential expression to selfies and add progressive hues to sunsets. Accessible through the platform’s Story Camera, AI Alive uses intelligent editing tools that give anyone, regardless of experience, “the ability to transform static images into captivating, short-form videos enhanced with movement, atmospheric and creative effects.” TikTok says it is prioritizing safety and transparency by adding a label to AI Alive stories, which will also have C2PA metadata embedded, traveling with the content even when it’s downloaded and shared elsewhere.

AI Alive “lets users turn their static photos into videos with a prompt to describe what they want the video to look like,” TechCrunch reports. “If your static photo features a sky, clouds, and the ocean, TikTok could turn the photo into a video where the sky gradually shifts hues, the clouds start to drift, and you hear the sound of waves crashing. Or, you could animate a group selfie that highlights gestures and expressions.”

While several social platforms, including TikTok, have AI text-to-image generators, TikTok now becomes the first to launch an in-app video generator. Snap in September began beta testing a Snapchat GenVid feature among select creators. And in March, xAI bought AI startup Hotshot to bring motion imaging to X social’s chatbot Grok.

Although Instagram and Facebook owner Meta Platforms was first out of the gate in 2022 with Make-A-Video, it remains a research project.

To use AI Alive, users must “open the Story Camera in the TikTok app by tapping the blue ‘+’ icon located at the top of either the Inbox page or the Profile page, then select a single photo from their Story Album,” PetaPixel explains. The AI Alive icon then appears on the right-side toolbar of the photo edit page.

“Once the AI Alive Story is created and posted, it becomes viewable within the For You and Following feeds, as well as on the user’s profile page, providing followers with multiple ways to engage with the content,” PetaPixel adds.

“With AI Alive, creators can now easily animate their photos and tell richer, more visually engaging stories for their communities,” TikTok says in a newsroom post.