• May 30, 2025, 2:02 p.m.

Create an AI Meme Generator Using DALL·E and Gradio

AI-generated memes are a fun and engaging way to explore the power of generative models. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to build your own AI Meme Generator using OpenAI’s DALL·E model for image generation and Gradio for the user interface. With just a few lines of Python code, you can build an interactive web app that generates memes based on your custom prompts.

 

🔧 Step 1: Install Required Packages

pip install openai gradio python-dotenv

This installs the openai package for accessing DALL·E, gradio for the web UI, and dotenv for securely loading API keys.

 

📁 Step 2: Project Structure

.
├── meme_generator.py
├── .env

 

🔐 Step 3: Add Your OpenAI API Key

Create a file named .env and add your OpenAI API key:

OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key_here

You can get a free key from https://platform.openai.com/account/api-keys.

 

🧠 Step 4: Create meme_generator.py Script

import os
import openai
import gradio as gr
from dotenv import load_dotenv

# Load API key
load_dotenv()
openai.api_key = os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY")

# Function to generate meme image
def generate_meme(prompt):
    try:
        response = openai.Image.create(
            prompt=f"A funny meme image with caption: {prompt}",
            n=1,
            size="512x512"
        )
        image_url = response['data'][0]['url']
        return image_url
    except Exception as e:
        return f"Error: {str(e)}"

# Gradio interface
interface = gr.Interface(
    fn=generate_meme,
    inputs=gr.Textbox(label="Enter your meme idea (e.g., 'cat in a business suit')"),
    outputs=gr.Image(type="pil", label="Generated Meme"),
    title="🖼️ AI Meme Generator",
    description="Enter a prompt and generate a meme using DALL·E and Gradio."
)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    interface.launch()

 

🚀 Step 5: Run the Meme Generator

python meme_generator.py

This will start a Gradio interface in your browser. Type in a funny prompt and watch the magic happen!

 

📝 Example Prompts:

• "dog working at a laptop in a cafe"
• "baby yelling at a cat in space"
• "CEO banana giving a TED talk"

 

📌 Notes:

• You can customize the image size by changing the size parameter (options: 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024).
• For better memes, you can manually overlay text using Python Pillow or let DALL·E generate images that already look like memes.
• Want to save the meme? Just right-click and save the image from the Gradio UI.

 

✅ Conclusion

You’ve now created a fun AI Meme Generator using DALL·E and Gradio! This project is a great starting point to explore AI image generation and can be extended with meme templates, custom fonts, or even automatic captioning. Let your imagination run wild and generate hilarious meme content with the power of AI!