WWDC25: Image Playground gets a boost with ChatGPT integration

Apple just announced a notable update to Image Playground, its AI-powered image generation tool introduced last year as part of the Apple Intelligence rollout. Now, ChatGPT will appear as a filter option. Here’s what that means.

Since its phased rollout last year, Image Playground has offered users an easy way to create illustrations in styles like “Sketch,” “3D cartoon,” and “Animation”. However, users have complained that the app has often felt somewhat limited, both in the kinds of images it could produce and in the specificity of prompts it could understand.

With iOS 26, that’s changing.

ChatGPT image generation comes to Image Playground

During today’s WWDC keynote, Apple confirmed that Image Playground is getting a new integration with ChatGPT. This will allow users to generate images in the following styles:

• Any Style
• Oil Painting
• Watercolor
• Vector
• Anime
• Print

For example, if you’re creating a Contact Poster, you’ll now be able to turn your friend’s photo into a stylized portrait that better matches their vibe. Or if you’re crafting an invite for an upcoming baby shower, you can simply type out what you have in mind and tap “Any Style” to get a more tailored result according to what you have in mind.

The system still defaults to Apple’s on-device models for faster, privacy-preserving generation, but when you need more creativity or specificity, it will now offer the option to send your input to ChatGPT for additional processing.

Importantly, as Apple explains it, “you’re always in control, and nothing is shared with ChatGPT without your permission.”

In practice, this gives Image Playground a second wind. Apple’s default styles are great for whimsical, emoji-like graphics, but if you’ve ever tried to use the feature for anything slightly more ambitious and bumped into its limitations, this will be a welcome upgrade.

For ongoing updates and full coverage of WWDC25, head over to our news hub.

Do you use Image Playground? Are you excited about the ChatGPT integration? Let us know in the comments.