NEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms ( META ), the

parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said on Tuesday it was

expanding its suite of generative AI ads products to offer tools

that can automatically create variations of images and overlay

text atop them.

The tool will launch in test form without the watermarks the

social media company is applying to all images generated by its

user-facing Meta AI assistant, which it has touted as a key

safety feature, executives said at a press conference.

John Hegeman, Meta's head of monetization, said the company

was still working through how labeling would work for ads and

would share guidelines by the time the tool rolls out globally,

likely around the end of this year.

The announcement comes as Meta is pumping billions of

dollars into building and supporting its generative AI models,

while trying to convince advertisers they can get more bang for

their buck by automating the work involved in creative aspects

of their campaigns.

Fellow digital ads giant Google announced a similar

expansion of AI ads tools in February. Google said ads created

using its tools would be labeled using the SynthID watermarking

technology developed by its AI research lab, DeepMind.

With Meta's image generation tool, advertisers will be able

to upload images of its products and generate other versions of

those images, for example by adjusting the products' orientation

or showing people using them in different settings.

It is also expanding its text-generation offerings for

headlines and key selling points, while adding the capability to

overlay text onto generated images directly.

The company will add an option in the coming months for

advertisers to input text prompts that can be used to tailor the

image variations, it said.

As with earlier generative AI tools, advertisers running

campaigns in regulated industries like politics will be barred

from using the products.

Advertisers have rushed to embrace AI ads tools that

automate the placement of their campaigns in front of different

groups of users, but generally have been more hesitant about

newer generative AI tools.

Some brands have expressed reservations about how tech

companies will use any images they upload to improve the

models, wary that their logos or other intellectual property

could wind up in others' generated images.