How a Meta partnership with Midjourney could inject more AI into future products

3 days ago 15
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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

  • Meta is partnering with AI start-up Midjourney.
  • It's the latest determination successful Meta's accelerated translation to support up successful the AI race. 
  • Midjourney volition stay independent, according to its CEO.

Meta is partnering with Midjourney arsenic portion of its ongoing effort to triumph the AI race.

The collaboration volition let Meta to integrate Midjourney's "aesthetic technology" into aboriginal models and products, Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang wrote successful a X post connected Friday. "We are incredibly impressed by Midjourney," Wang wrote. "They person accomplished existent feats of method and aesthetic excellence, and we are thrilled to beryllium moving much intimately with them."

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Midjourney launched successful the summertime of 2022, not agelong earlier generative AI began to dispersed similar wildfire crossed the taste landscape, acknowledgment successful ample portion to the merchandise of ChatGPT astir 4 months later. The institution rapidly became known arsenic an manufacture person successful text-to-image models; it released an image-to-video model, called V1, successful June of this year.

The fiscal presumption of the Meta-Midjourney concern person not been made public. "We stay an independent, community-backed probe lab, with nary investors," Midjourney CEO David Holz wrote connected X connected Friday.

Meta's pivot toward AI

The quality arrives during a infinitesimal of accelerated translation wrong Meta, arsenic the institution scrambles to found itself arsenic an manufacture person successful AI.

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The institution launched a superintelligence part successful June, reportedly incentivizing AI researchers from starring AI companies similar OpenAI to interruption ranks and articulation Meta with nine-figure compensation packages (Meta successfully poached Apple's apical AI executive). The determination sharply escalated a endowment warfare crossed Silicon Valley -- astatine the aforesaid time, incidentally, that galore younger and little experienced machine scientists are struggling to summation a foothold successful the industry.

The motorboat of Meta's Superintelligence laboratory coincided with a multibillion-dollar concern successful Scale AI, a institution that helps tech companies bid AI models. Wang, the cofounder and erstwhile CEO of Scale, was brought aboard to pb the superintelligence project.

What happens next?

It's unclear astatine this constituent precisely however partnering with Midjourney volition impact the improvement of Meta's AI products. But Meta's AI strategy to day offers a mates of clues.

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The institution could, for example, fold Midjourney's image- and video-generating tools into an AI merchandise bundle for advertisers, who inactive signifier Meta's fiscal backbone. The institution reportedly has plans to automate each measurement of the ad-production process, and the collaboration could go an integral portion of making that imaginativeness a reality. 

The concern could besides assistance Meta physique much realistic and engaging AI companions -- which CEO Mark Zuckerberg has hinted volition beryllium a cardinal portion of his imaginativeness for the aboriginal -- crossed its household of apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Meta could besides integrate Midjourney with its Meta AI app, which combines a multimodal chatbot with a societal media assemblage element. 

Meta and Midjourney did not instantly respond to ZDNET's petition for comment.

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