As short-form digital video appears to be heading toward a wave of AI-generated slop, Snapchat is setting new ground rules for how that sort of content can exist on its platform moving forward.
The tech company on Friday said that it will ban wholly AI-generated videos in its Spotlight product, which surfaces trending and original content from creators and studios.
“As low-quality, repetitive, AI-generated content becomes increasingly common across the internet, we want Spotlight to remain a place where people can discover authentic creativity from real people, because we believe there’s enduring value in rewarding original perspectives, personal storytelling, and the moments that people choose to create and share themselves,” the company said in a statement.
AI is not banned altogether: Snapchat says that creators who have “enhanced or edited using Snapchat’s AI creative tools” will still be eligible for Spotlight, noting that “for some, AI plays an important part of the creative process, and we believe it can unlock incredible new forms of expression.”
Nonetheless, banning entirely AI-generated videos is meant to crack down on prompt-driven slop, which has become more prevalent on every platform as video models like Google’s Nano Banana and Seedance get better and better.
It also seems like something of a pushback against Facebook and Instagram, which have been more open to AI content.
In fact, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post Thursday that the company’s Muse image and video models could lead to a “nearly infinite universe of personalized content.”
“This is going to make our services a lot more useful and engaging for people,” he added.
Snapchat seems to be betting that maybe humans will prefer something a little more human-led, even if AI isn’t cut out from the process entirely.