Meta is moving forward with their AI initiatives by collborating with one of the leaders in AI image generation technology Midjourney. The contraction is “Meta” and “Midjourney” happened as Meta recently shared this piece of news. The partnership was announced by Meta’s AI Chief Wang through threads and Midjourney’s AI technology will be licensed by Meta. Image and video creation AI technology will be added to Meta’s products.
Wang elaborated on Midjourney and explained Meta’s interest to his “all-of-the-above approach” on AI. Instead of focusing on one project or one approach to fulfill their goals, Meta Teams up with the AI experts in the industry, use advanced technology, and has in-house capabilities too. Midjourney is popular, reliable, creative, and their collboration will help Meta achieve their goals.
Why Midjourney is Important
Those who keep track of AI-generated images on the internet are likely familiar with Midjourney. The startup created by David Holz in 2022 became renowned for its unique and near artistic image creation. The buzz around Midjourney escalated in 2023 after FY estimates suggested the company would earn around $200 million in revenue. Midjourney circumvented conventional investment routes and opted for a subscription based model, with lower tiers priced at $10 per month and $120 per month for the premium tiers.
Meta foes not dominate the AI image industry, and so the release of Midjourney’s new V1 video creation model could potentially help create video tools that compete with other AI companies, thus making the partnership more useful.
Meta is not new to the partnership, having previously collaborated with the company to create more connection and creativity in the Meta ecosystem. Meta released an AI image generator, “Imagine”, which was integrated into FB, IG and Messenger. The partnership also released Movie Gen, a video creation app that turns text into video.
The competition is indeed heating up in this sector. OpenAI’s Sora, Google’s Veo, and Black Forest Labs’ Flux are already garnering attention for their sophisticated video models. Through its collaboration with Midjourney, it is evident that Meta is trying to compete and perhaps even surge ahead. Now, with this collaboration, Meta can incorporate Midjourney’s unique and distinct visual styles and powerful generation tools into its products, making them more attractive to casual and professional users alike.
Meta is focusing on strengthening its position in the market, and it looks like this partnership is only the beginning. This focuses on the bigger picture that aims to strengthen the company’s standing in the artificial intelligence domains. A few figures emerging from the industry included its CEO Mark Zuckerberg offering several AI researchers more than $100 million in bonuses, showing how aggressive they are during the AI talent race.
This focuses on the bigger picture that aims to strengthen the company’s standing in the artificial intelligence domains. A few figures emerging from the industry included its CEO Mark Zuckerberg offering several AI researchers more than $100 million in bonuses, showing how aggressive they are during the AI talent race. Meta also invested $14 billion in Scale AI and acquired Play AI, a voice technology startup, to broaden its AI capabilities. At one point, the company even held talks about buying Midjourney outright, although that never happened. Interestingly, Zuckerberg also spoke with Elon Musk about joining his $97 billion bid to take over OpenAI, but Meta ultimately stayed on the sidelines.
The Legal Issues Affecting AI
The lawsuits surrounding artificial intelligence technology are quite important to note. Midjourney is being sued by Disney and Universal for allegedly using copyrighted materials to train its models. Meta is also involved in some of these lawsuits, along with other leading AI companies. So far, most verdicts have favored the technology companies, which means there is a lot of legal work to be done that could influence the future of AI training.
The Future Outlook
The collaboration suggests that AI and Meta could create new advanced features that are integrated into their existing applications more easily for the public. People could create and edit professional-grade images and movies using just a few clicks on Meta’s platforms. These features could also completely change how advertisements, campaigns, and digital storytelling are created for the marketers, businesses, and content creators.
Meta appears to be focused on trying to not just get ahead of OpenAI and Google, but to also create something unique for users. If Midjourney’s technology can be integrated successfully, it would allow Meta to provide advanced AI features that are more personal, creative, and engaging than any other option available in the market.
Reflecting on Meta’s AI Evolution
To contextualize this news, let me mention some key highlights of Meta’s AI progress over the last year.
- In 2023, Meta launched Imagine, its first image generation tool, on all of its major platforms. This was Meta’s first image generating tool and was available on all major platforms.
- The company introduced Movie Gen, an AI video tool that creates clips directly from text prompts.
- They launched Movie Gen, an AI video tool that creates clips from text.
- Zuckerberg went on an unprecedented hiring spree, offering huge pay checks to top AI researchers.
- Zuckerberg was quoted saying they are buying Meta stock back which was an investment of 14 Billion dollars on ai and other projects.
- Zuckerberg made Musk an offer to takeover part of OpenAI and they are also in the news for rumored takeover of Midjourney. This just goes to show how aggressive and forward-looking are Meta’s business decisions.
This new partnership with Midjourney marks another major step in that journey. The deal remains undisclosed but what is important is the sum Meta is putting in AI development proving that Meta is doing everything to not be left behind this race.