Generative AI is nothing new for Snapchat users, with the app's "My AI" suite offering the likes of a free ChatGPT-powered chatbot, as well as the freemium AI-generated "Dreams" selfie effects, Bitmoji backgrounds and more. In the latest update, Snapchat subscribers can now leverage AI to extend images -- or "zoom out" -- at the click of a button, thus making the social media app even more practical. Say you have a snapshot of your pet but it's a little too close, just click on the crop button on the right menu, and then hit the "Extend" button at the bottom. The updated My AI also lets subscribers directly generate Snaps by typing a simple prompt. In the viewfinder, click the "AI" button on the right, then type in whatever you desire (within reason, of course), and shortly, you'll have an image to tinker with before sharing.

The new feature, which OpenAI calls "outpainting," could be useful to graphic designers who need to create multiple sizes and shapes of a particular image to present in different contexts. A movie promo image, for instance, might require a perfectly square shape in one context, and a tall rectangular shape in another. For the latter, new art is required to fill in the extra space. Now, the editing interface is getting some new buttons to control the expansion of images. In a demo Tuesday, I watched OpenAI engineer David Schnurr extend an image DALL-E had created earlier based on the keywords "two teddy bears mixing sparkling chemicals inside of a laboratory."