Silicon Valley giant Meta is making another big move! On Friday, Meta's Chief AI Officer Alexander Wang announced on Threads that the company has reached a technology licensing agreement with AI image generation unicorn Midjourney, marking another acceleration in Meta's layout in the field of artificial intelligence.
Wang said that Meta's research team will work deeply with Midjourney to integrate its advanced technologies into future AI models and products. He emphasized, "To ensure that Meta can provide users with the best product experience, we must adopt a comprehensive strategy. This means we need world-class talent, ambitious computing power roadmaps, and close cooperation with industry top players."
This collaboration is a timely boost for Meta. The current competition in the AI image and video generation field is extremely intense, with OpenAI's Sora, Black Forest Lab's Flux, and Google's Veo all showing strong capabilities. Although Meta launched its own AI image generation tool Imagine last year and integrated it into products such as Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, as well as having a video generation tool called Movie Gen, it still needs stronger support to face fierce competition.
Image source note: The image was generated by AI, and the image licensing service provider is Midjourney
This licensing deal is just the latest move in Meta's AI arms race. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg initiated an unprecedented AI talent war, offering some researchers salary packages as high as $100 million. In addition, this social media giant also invested $1.4 billion in Scale AI and acquired AI voice startup Play AI.
It is reported that Meta has also discussed acquisition talks with several other top AI laboratories. Zuckerberg even discussed joining Elon Musk's $97 billion acquisition plan for OpenAI, but Meta ultimately did not participate in this bid, and OpenAI also rejected Musk's acquisition proposal.
Although the specific terms of the collaboration with Midjourney have not been made public, David Holz, CEO of Midjourney, clarified on X that the company remains independently operated without external investors. This makes Midjourney one of the few top AI model developers that have never accepted external financing. According to Upstarts Media, Meta had indeed considered acquiring Midjourney directly before.
Founded in 2022, Midjourney quickly emerged in the AI image generation field with its realistic and unique artistic style. By 2023, the startup's annual revenue is expected to have reached $200 million. Midjourney uses a subscription model, with the basic package starting at $10 per month, and the premium package offering more image generation opportunities, up to $120 per month. In June this year, the company released its first AI video model, V1.
Notably, Meta's collaboration with Midjourney comes at a time when the latter is facing legal challenges. Two months ago, Disney and Universal Studios sued Midjourney, accusing it of using copyrighted works in training AI image models. Several AI model developers, including Meta, are facing similar accusations, although recent court cases involving AI training data have mostly favored the tech companies.
The signing of this cooperation agreement undoubtedly adds an important chip for Meta in the next round of AI competition, and signals that the wave of integration in the field of artificial intelligence is accelerating.
