Phota Labs launches an AI app that reshoots your everyday photos while keeping faces real

Phota Labs, an a16z-backed startup founded by former Adobe engineers Cecilia Zhang and Zach Xia, has launched an iOS app that uses AI to turn everyday snapshots into professional-looking photos, TechCrunch reported.

Instead of offering more editing sliders, the app tries to fix the shot itself, for example turning a wide group photo into a tighter portrait. Users pick a style, from subtle edits that keep the original lens and framing to bigger changes such as a different angle or a fisheye effect. Phota built its own technology that learns what the people in a user's photos look like, so transformations don't change their faces, a common problem with general chatbots.

Every edited image carries an invisible watermark marking it as altered by AI. "We have this obsession with authenticity," Xia said. The company is aiming first at people who take lots of photos for social media.