Zero-Shot Personalization of Objects via Textual Inversion

arXiv cs.CV / 3/25/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper tackles the challenge of making text-to-image diffusion customization both fast and efficient while extending beyond human-only identity embeddings to arbitrary object categories.
  • It introduces a framework that uses a learned network to generate object-specific textual inversion embeddings, which are then injected into UNet timesteps to drive diffusion-based, text-conditional customization.
  • The method enables “zero-shot” personalization of many different object types in a single forward pass, aiming for generalization and scalability without per-object training.
  • Experiments across multiple tasks and settings are reported to validate the approach’s effectiveness and practicality for real-world, rapid customization workflows.
  • The authors claim it is the first attempt at general-purpose, training-free personalization in diffusion models, positioning it as a foundation for follow-on research in inclusive personalized image generation.

Abstract

Recent advances in text-to-image diffusion models have substantially improved the quality of image customization, enabling the synthesis of highly realistic images. Despite this progress, achieving fast and efficient personalization remains a key challenge, particularly for real-world applications. Existing approaches primarily accelerate customization for human subjects by injecting identity-specific embeddings into diffusion models, but these strategies do not generalize well to arbitrary object categories, limiting their applicability. To address this limitation, we propose a novel framework that employs a learned network to predict object-specific textual inversion embeddings, which are subsequently integrated into the UNet timesteps of a diffusion model for text-conditional customization. This design enables rapid, zero-shot personalization of a wide range of objects in a single forward pass, offering both flexibility and scalability. Extensive experiments across multiple tasks and settings demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, highlighting its potential to support fast, versatile, and inclusive image customization. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the first attempt to achieve such general-purpose, training-free personalization within diffusion models, paving the way for future research in personalized image generation.