Meta bets big on AI video feed

Users call it slop; timing screams catch-up

Meta is rolling out Vibes, a dedicated feed of AI-generated short videos inside the Meta AI app and on meta.ai—a move the company frames as creative empowerment even as other platforms clamp down on synthetic filler. See the official details in Meta’s Vibes announcement. As a product bet, it’s audacious. As a timing signal, it looks defensive.

Vibes arrives with a simple premise: a TikTok-style, full-screen feed populated entirely by AI. You can generate a clip from scratch, remix what others made, add visuals or music, and then share within the Vibes feed or cross-post to Instagram and Facebook. Personalization rides Meta’s existing recommendation systems, so the stream should sharpen as you scroll.

The gap between pitch and reception

The early reaction wasn’t subtle. Under Mark Zuckerberg’s launch post, the most-liked replies dismissed the feature as more “AI slop.” That response tracks broader creator fatigue with uncanny, near-but-not-human content flooding social feeds. TechCrunch’s launch piece—bluntly headlined—captured the tone of the day.

What’s actually new

This isn’t Meta’s first step into AI video. In June, the company pushed out generative video editing across the Meta AI app and meta.ai; Vibes elevates those tools into a standalone, remix-friendly feed. The company describes this week’s release as an “early preview,” emphasizing iteration over completeness. The mechanics—remix, re-style, cross-post—are straightforward; the bet is that a dedicated feed will stoke creation loops the main apps couldn’t.

A strategic contradiction

Meta has spent the summer telling creators it would punish “unoriginal” reposts and low-effort filler on Facebook to boost authentic storytelling. Now it’s introducing a product that by design amplifies synthetic, de-personalized clips. That’s not necessarily hypocrisy—the company can want less plagiarism while testing new formats—but it does set up mixed incentives: the main apps nudge toward “real,” while Vibes rewards infinite remix. Creators will notice the whiplash.

Partnerships expose a timeline

Meta says it’s “continuing to develop our own models,” but reporting indicates the early Vibes stack leans on partners including Midjourney and Black Forest Labs. That’s a pragmatic shortcut—and a tell. If true, the dependency buys Meta speed while conceding that its in-house video generation isn’t yet ready for primetime. It also creates a leverage point for partners on pricing and access until Meta closes the capability gap.

Competitive context: swimming against the current

Across the industry, moderation is moving one way while Vibes sails another. YouTube is tightening monetization rules to limit mass-produced, low-value AI content, clarifying that “inauthentic” spam won’t get paid. Meta itself has talked up demoting repetitive, derivative posts. Vibes—an all-AI river of clips—runs against that tide and will test whether a fenced-off feed can contain the downside while showcasing the upside.

Product logic—and the risk surface

There is a coherent product thesis here. Vibes funnels users into the Meta AI app, which is also the command center for Ray-Ban smart glasses and other camera-adjacent features. If Vibes sticks, it becomes a showcase for multimodal assistants and a distribution spine for future models. The flip side is a moderation and trust headache. Synthetic video at scale expands the attack surface for scams, harassment, political manipulation, and run-of-the-mill junk. Unless guardrails and provenance signals are visible and enforced, the feed could become a magnet for what users are already rejecting elsewhere. (Meta’s post doesn’t detail firm guardrails yet, beyond “preview” framing.)

The business read

Meta booked nearly $165 billion in revenue last year. But on AI mindshare, it trails OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Vibes is a public demo track for Meta’s creative-media ambitions and its reorganized AI push under the “Superintelligence Labs” banner. Launching a consumer-facing, model-hungry feed may also help justify the company’s escalating AI spend by tying research directly to visible, daily use. The open question is whether users want an all-synthetic stream—or if the novelty decays into numbness.

Bottom line

Vibes is both a product and a provocation. If it lands, Meta reframes “AI slop” as a creative playground with social gravity. If it misses, it becomes another reminder that scale alone can’t will an audience into caring about content that feels a little off.

Why this matters

• Platform direction: If Vibes finds traction, “authenticity” may stop being the default value prop of social media, with recommendation engines optimizing for remixable style over lived experience.
• AI execution: Reports of external model partners suggest Meta’s in-house video generation still isn’t production-ready, a gap that shapes timelines, costs, and investor expectations.