Social networking apps are beginning to integrate A.I. into their image capabilities to make their platforms more social. After Facebook, Instagram and other apps have become more corporate over the years, A.I. imagery presents a way for them to bring back the whimsy and fun so users can rediscover what was once the point of the platforms: to share and interact with one another.

Large social platforms and new apps alike are incorporating A.I. image features. Last month, Snapchat announced Dreams, an A.I. imaging feature that lets users in Britain, Australia and New Zealand create outlandish selfies. TikTok last year rolled out several in-app filters that use A.I. to transform selfies into the style of a comic or a dreamlike character. BeFake, a social app launched in August, is also experimenting with A.I. selfies and images.

On Wednesday, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger jumped in as well. Meta, which owns the apps, said the services would now offer A.I. tools for instantly generating photorealistic “stickers,” which can be shared. It added that it would introduce similar tools for editing and restyling existing images. These tools could put cowboy boots on two babies in a family photo, for instance.

“You can generate imagery inside of your chats,” said Ahmad Al-Dahle, Meta’s vice president of generative A.I. While most image-generation tools need 10 to 20 seconds to create an image, he added, Meta’s new tool needs only five.

The growing number of A.I. imagery tools in various apps underlines how “using A.I. interactively is where social media will go,” said Sam Saliba, who was Instagram’s global brand marketing lead and is now a marketing and branding consultant in Silicon Valley.