Google’s latest AI project ventures into Pinterest’s territory, as the company announced the launch of Mixboard, software that enables anyone to create AI-powered mood boards.
The service competes with Pinterest’s collage feature, where users create mood boards using their favorite Pins and other images.
With Mixboard, however, there’s no need to have an established image collection to pull ideas from. Instead, users can start their own project using text prompts to have AI fill in the ideas. (Pre-populated boards you can edit are also available if you need a little help in the creativity department.)
The service is initially available as a public beta in the U.S. via Google Labs.
After you create images using AI, you can then ask the AI to make edits and other small changes, or even combine images. This leverages Google’s new image editing model, Nano Banana, which has been enthusiastically received for its ability to handle more complex edits and make realistic images.
Following its launch, Google’s Gemini AI app pushed ChatGPT out of the top spot on the U.S. App Store.
With Mixboard, Google is catering to user demand for Nano Banana by incorporating it in its own product, which it suggests could be used to brainstorm ideas involving home decor and design, event themes, DIY projects, and more, with both images and text.
Younger users have shown some interest in making digital mood boards.
Pinterest found viral success with a standalone collage-making app, Shuffles, which Gen Z users used to make creative TikTok videos. The app’s features were later integrated into Pinterest itself. Other startups have also explored this space, like Landing (now shuttered), the AI-powered creative app Verse (which seems to have inspired Mixboard), and more. Depop today also launched a collage-making tool to help its users style and sell their fashion collections.
Mixboard’s mood boards can also be reimagined, Google says, using options that let you “regenerate” the images to get more ideas, or to ask the AI to generate “more like this.” Plus, the AI can generate text based on the images on users’ boards.
To try Mixboard, U.S. users can visit labs.google/mixboard to get started. A Discord community is also available.
Instagram now has 3 billion monthly active users, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. This milestone comes almost four years after Instagram reportedly hit 2 billion monthly users in December 2021, catching up to other Meta platforms. Zuckerberg announced that Facebook had surpassed 3 billion users in January, followed by WhatsApp in April.
We’ve asked Meta if the new Instagram milestone includes users for its X rival Threads, which launched in July 2023 and requires users to sign up using an Instagram or Facebook account. Bloomberg reports that private messaging and Reels short-form video features are Instagram’s biggest growth drivers, and are what the platform is now focusing on for upcoming updates.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri told the publication that upcoming changes include making DMs and Reels easier to find on the platform’s home screen navigation bar, and an algorithm update that allows users to influence which topics appear more or less frequently in Instagram and Reels feeds.
Instagram is also planning to run tests in India and South Korea that will default users to Reels when opening the app, in an effort to take advantage of India’s TikTok ban.