Apple introduced its own take on AI called Apple Intelligence some time ago running on iOS 18. Apple’s AI brings a host of features to supported devices including generative emojis dubbed Genmoji. It is a new take on emojis and how you communicate with others. Let’s take a look at what Genmoji is and how it works.
Genmoji – Generative Emojis for New Gen
Emojis is an international language that knows no bounds or borders. It’s like music and yes, you need a keyboard to use it. Almost all social media apps, mobile keyboards, and even desktop apps have an emoji menu that opens the doors to all sorts of emojis. And yet, many of us find ourselves looking for but failing to find the perfect emoji to describe what we are feeling or want to say.
Enter Genmoji (short form for generative emoji). Using AI magic, you can now create new emojis from scratch using nothing but your imagination and a text prompt. Here’s an example.
- Open any app like Messages or Notes.
- Launch the keyboard app.
- Select the Emoji option.
- Go to the Genmoji tab.
- Describe the emoji you would like to create and share.
An example can be ‘a smiley relaxing with cucumbers on its eyes’.
Boom! Apple Intelligence will create a new emoji from scratch. You will notice that there are some examples too. Simply scroll through the generated Genmojis and pick the one that you like the most. Apple AI will create a couple of Genmojis for each prompt that you give so you always have some choice.
Note: You can store Genmojis in your library to use it again later.
Here’s an example of a T-Rex on a surfboard.
What really excites me is the fact that I can also create Genmojis around people I know. See, your iPhone already knows who resides in your Contacts, Messages, and Photos app. It can use that data to create Genmojis on your friends and contacts just as easily. Turn your best friend into a firefighter emoji.
You can send Genmojis as a message or use it to react to a message. Note that you will need to use iPhone’s default keyboard to use Genmoji.
Genmoji is not available yet but will soon arrive on iPhones that will support AI with the iOS 18.2 update scheduled to arrive sometime in October in the USA and later to the rest of the world.
Thanks to the NSAdaptiveimageGlyph API Apple developed, you will soon see Genmoji is almost all your favorite apps. The default emoji keyboard has been redesigned to display unicodes, Memojis, Genmojis, and regular emojis. Apple’s Developer page suggests Genmojis can be converted into and used as stickers as well.