🎨 ChatGPT's new image creator goes viral

Hi AI Futurists,

Today we’re looking at ChatGPT’s biggest viral moment since its creation: its new native image generation feature can now produce Ghibli-style illustrations, prompting a flood of anime-inspired transformations, as well as other iconic styles and graphic design techniques, online.

Here’s our agenda.

• ChatGPT goes viral again

• Top 3 selected AI tools

• AI can do what!?

• AI quick hits

Best,
Lex

How AI is Impacting the World

ChatGPT goes viral again

OpenAI’s latest update to GPT-4o has turned social media into a whimsical playground. Its new native image generation feature is now capable of producing Ghibli-style illustrations, prompting a flood of anime-inspired transformations online. Users are feeding in photos of themselves, friends, and even movie stills, then asking ChatGPT to reinterpret them in the style of the legendary Japanese animation studio. The result is a wave of soft watercolor lines, pastel palettes, and dreamlike portraits. “[This is] tremendous alpha right now,” said one user, while another joked that nothing says romance like getting “Ghibli-fied” with your spouse.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman even joined the party, swapping his X profile picture for a Ghibli version of himself and poking fun at how years of grinding on AI can suddenly turn into meme fuel: “>wake up one day to hundreds of messages: ‘look i made you into a twink ghibli style haha.’”

The image generation feature is baked directly into ChatGPT’s interface, making it easier than ever to generate art without needing third-party tools like DALL·E. OpenAI says it trained the model on the “joint distribution of online images and text,” enabling a deeper understanding of how visual and linguistic elements relate.

This wave of stylized creation has sparked a familiar divide: awe versus dismissal. Some see it as delightful creativity, others call it derivative “AI slop.” OpenAI has relaxed some of its earlier restrictions on style mimicry and branding, which partially explains the sudden flood of distinctive, recognizable visuals. But it still draws the line at using exact celebrity likenesses. While critics debate artistic merit, the deeper takeaway may be about how accessible, on-demand aesthetic expression is reframing what we think of as creativity—and who gets to participate.

Key Points

• GPT-4o allows direct image generation, integrated into ChatGPT.

• Users are creating Studio Ghibli-style portraits using detailed, prompt-based instructions.

• OpenAI relaxed previous restrictions on mimicking artistic styles.

• Altman acknowledged the viral trend, adding a human moment of self-deprecating humor.

• Social platforms are flooded with Ghibli-style content, including from brands and creators.

What We Think About It

This is a milestone in generative UX—no plugins, no extra tools, just type and create. The Ghibli trend shows how frictionless interfaces lower the bar for participation in creative work. While some argue about authenticity, it’s clear AI is becoming a personal expression tool, not just a productivity tool.

What You Can Do Now:

Try the new GPT-4o image feature by uploading a photo and requesting a Ghibli-style version or any other artistic style of your choosing Experiment with prompt design to match different aesthetic styles—it’s a great way to understand how text-to-image alignment works in practice. For marketers, there is a lot of value in being able to test ad creative quickly.

Apply AI Superpowers with Tools

1. Scene 2.0 - Modular AI Web Builder

   The smart way to build websites

   

2. Grok for Android

   The official app by xAl

   

3. SimplAI
   The simplest and fastest way to build and deploy Agentic AI

   

Looking to share your product or service with tens of thousands of readers passionate about AI?

Reply to this email to learn more about the Future Blueprint audience and whether a newsletter sponsorship may be right for you.

AI can do what!?

Lord of The Rings Reimagined

AI Quick Hits

• What will happen to a newspaper if AI took over?

• Instacart to Use AI to Check Grocery Store Inventory

• Gemini 2.5: Our most intelligent AI model

• OpenAI adopts rival Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to data

• How AI is Helping Solve the Problem of Marine Debris

• Is AI the new research scientist? Not so, according to a human-led study.

• A growth mindset in banking requires AI

• Garmin adds AI and a subscription tier to its app

• NVIDIA's Bold Bet on Physical AI Takes Shape

• AI matches pathologists in diagnosing celiac disease

That’s all for today, folks!

• If you’re enjoying the newsletter, share with a friend by sending them this link: 👉 https://www.futureblueprint.xyz/subscribe

• Looking for past newsletters? You can find them all here.

• Working on a cool A.I. project that you would like us to write about? Reply to this email with details, we’d love to hear from you!