How to Do the AI Hug Trend on TikTok, Step by Step

1. Open Gemini or ChatGPT and upload two photos: you today and the other person (your younger self, a parent, a friend).
2. Ask for one photo of the two of them hugging and say what must stay the same. The Polaroid look creators share is a soft flash, white curtains behind and both faces unchanged (example on TikTok).
3. Download the picture. To post it as a video, add it to a TikTok photo post or animate it with Way 2.

Make one photo that looks like it was taken with a Polaroid camera: the person from the first photo and the person from the second photo hug each other, standing, both faces turned a little toward the camera. Soft flash, slight grain, plain white curtains behind them. Keep both faces, hairstyles and clothes exactly as in the photos. No text.

Chatbots can change a face a little. Compare the result with the photos before you share it.

For the moving version, people use an image-to-video app or a CapCut template opened from a TikTok post. The steps are much the same everywhere: pick the hug template or type “make these two people hug each other”, add the photos, wait, download. In one 2024 tutorial a creator did it in Luma’s Dream Machine with the prompt “Make these images hug eachother” (TikTok).

Apps change quickly: the free tier, the watermark and the price are on each app’s own page. Check them before you buy credits.

1. Pick the effect: Polaroid Hug for the Polaroid frame, Hug for plain daylight, Memorial Hug for someone you miss.
2. Add two photos, one per person, faces clear. One photo with both people works too.
3. Tap create. It runs on Seedance 2.0 Mini at 720p, 5 seconds, 9:16, for 4 credits; the provider quotes up to about 5 minutes. There is no free preview.
4. Download the MP4, music included, and post it.

Each face, hairstyle and outfit is kept from its own photo. Our demos used photos of adults; we have not tested childhood photos, so treat a first video with a child photo as a try.

Many of these videos are made for a parent, a grandparent or a friend who has died, and they can be heavy to watch. The hug is an imagined scene, not a real moment. Use a photo you have the right to use, and think about how the family will feel before you post it publicly.

• Turn on the AI-generated label. TikTok asks creators to label realistic AI content (TikTok).
• TikTok does not allow AI content showing the likeness of anyone under 18. A hug with you as a child may fall under that rule; you as a teenager over 18 or a younger adult is the safer pick.
• It also does not allow AI content using an adult private person’s likeness without their permission, so ask the other person first.
• Add a soft song from TikTok’s sound library, or keep the music already in the MP4.