Meta Partners with Midjourney to Boost AI Image and Video Capabilities

Meta partners with Midjourney on AI image and video models | TechCrunch

Meta is partnering with Midjourney to license the startup's AI image and video generation technology, Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang announced Friday in a post on Threads. Wang says Meta's research teams will collaborate with Midjourney to bring its technology into future AI models and products. "To ensure Meta is able to deliver the best possible products for people it will require taking an all-of-the-above approach," Wang said. "This means world-class talent, ambitious compute roadmap, and working with the best players across the industry." The Midjourney partnership could help Meta develop products that compete with industry-leading AI image and video models, such as OpenAI's Sora, Black Forest Lab's Flux, and Google's Veo. Last year, Meta rolled out its own AI image generation tool, Imagine, into several of its products, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Meta also has an AI video generation tool, Movie Gen, that allows users to create videos from prompts. The licensing agreement with Midjourney marks Meta's latest deal to get ahead in the AI race. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on a hiring spree for AI talent, offering some researchers compensation packages worth upwards of $100 million. The social media giant also invested $14 billion in Scale AI, and acquired the AI voice startup, Play AI. Meta has held talks with several other leading AI labs about other acquisitions, and Zuckerberg even spoke with Elon Musk about joining his $97 billion takeover bid of OpenAI (Meta ultimately did not join the offer, and OpenAI denied Musk's bid). While the terms of Meta's deal with Midjourney remain unknown, the startup's CEO, David Holz, said in a post on X that his company remains independent with no investors; Midjourney is one of the few leading AI model developers that has never taken on outside funding. At one point, Meta talked with Midjourney about acquiring the startup, according to Upstarts Media. Midjourney was co-founded in 2022 and quickly became a leader in the AI image generation space for its realistic, unique style. By 2023, the startup was reportedly on pace to generate $200 million in revenue. The startup sells subscriptions starting at $10 per month. It offers pricier tiers, which offer more AI image generations, that cost as much as $120 per month. In June, the startup released its first AI video model, V1. Meta's partnership with Midjourney comes just two months after the startup was sued by Disney and Universal, alleging that it trained AI image models on copyrighted works. Several AI model developers -- including Meta -- face similar allegations from copyright holders, however, recent court cases pertaining to AI training data have sided with tech companies.

Meta Teams Up With Midjourney for Future Creative AI Models

Meta is diving into AI video generation with a splash. The company will work with and license models from Midjourney AI, one of the most popular AI image and video companies. Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, revealed the partnership in a post on X Friday. It's still unclear when a possible Meta x Midjourney model could be available for people to use. Meta teased a possible tool, MovieGen, at its 2024 Connect event, but we haven't heard much since. Right now you can upload an existing file or image, or you can choose to "restyle" an existing video, which lets Meta create a new version of your video with a different aesthetic or background, for example. But there's no straightforward, wholesale creation tool. That's different from competitors like OpenAI and Google, which let AI enthusiasts prompt with text and images to create with Sora and Veo 3. Read more: AI Essentials: 29 Ways You Can Make Gen AI Work for You, According to Our Experts Creative software companies like Runway, Luma and Pika have all bolstered their products as well, driving a new wave of AI products throughout the past year. Meta and Midjourney's partnership is the latest sign that AI video is a key component in the ever-competitive race to entice users with the most advanced AI products. Midjourney is a household name in AI image creation, and I was fairly impressed with its new AI video model when I tested it earlier this summer. It's also emblematic of another trend in AI media in that it's embroiled in a massive copyright infringement lawsuit. Disney and Universal sued the company in June, writing that the program was "a bottomless pit of plagiarism" and that it allowed users to create imagery featuring protected characters like Yoda and Shrek. Meta faced a similar claim, with a group of authors alleging Meta used their copyrighted content without permission to train its AI. But the court ruled Meta's actions were justified as fair use. So far, Meta's focus has been on integrating its chatbot into its social media platforms, like Instagram and Facebook. Its AI models, named Llama, have competed with OpenAI's GPT-5 and Google's Gemini. But this summer, the company has supercharged its efforts in AI, spending billions to poach top AI talent and reorganize its internal team structure. The Midjourney partnership is one of the first major moves from the new team, and it could point to how that new team is going to be approaching innovation. For Meta, working with one of the most popular AI media companies could give it the boost it needs.

Meta is going to stuff Midjourney AI images into your feed

Meta is partnering with Midjourney to "license their aesthetic technology" for use in its own models and products, Meta's new chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, announced on Friday. The partnership involves a "technical collaboration between our research teams," Wang said, suggesting the deal involves more than simply using Midjourney's existing product across Meta services. Wang didn't specify the terms of arrangement. Meta spokesperson Ashley Gabriel declined to comment and pointed to Wang's posts. Midjourney didn't immediately reply to requests for comment. Meta has been investing heavily in its AI "superintelligence" efforts as of late to catch up to rivals like OpenAI and Google. Mark Zuckerberg has personally worked to poach AI researchers from other companies with humongous offers -- Wang only joined Meta after it paid $14.3 billion to acquire 49 percent of Scale AI, the company he co-founded. The partnership with Midjourney ties directly into Meta's goals for AI imagery across its services. The Meta AI app is built around a feed of AI-generated images and videos. Facebook has added a button to create AI images when you go to make a new post. There are options to generate AI images within chats in WhatsApp and Instagram, too. Midjourney got on the map for its AI image and video generation tools. As Meta works to build out features like the Meta AI app's social feed, it's easy to imagine Meta relying on Midjourney's tech to help people make better-looking photos and videos. "We are incredibly impressed by Midjourney," Wang says. "They have accomplished true feats of technical and aesthetic excellence, and we are thrilled to be working more closely with them." The two companies will share more about what they're working on together "soon." Even with the partnership, Midjourney remains "an independent, community-backed research lab" with "no investors," founder and CEO David Holz says.

Meta to license AI technology from start-up as in-house models lag rivals

Meta will license technology from artificial intelligence image and video generation start-up Midjourney, as the social media group shifts towards working with third parties as its struggle to keep pace with rivals. Alexandr Wang, Meta's new chief AI officer, said in a post on X on Friday that the company planned to license Midjourney's "aesthetic technology for our future models and products, bringing beauty to billions" in a "technical collaboration" between their research teams. "To ensure Meta is able to deliver the best possible products for people it will require taking an all-of-the-above approach," he added. "This means world-class talent, ambitious compute road map, and working with the best players across the industry." The tie-up will allow Meta to develop and integrate multimedia AI generation features into its apps, as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has indicated that he expects AI-generated content to become more prominent on the platform. The move comes as Zuckerberg pours billions of dollars into developing "superintelligence" that surpasses human intelligence. In recent months he has aggressively poached top AI researchers from competitors, doubled down on his investment in AI infrastructure and acquired AI voice company Play AI. Meta also took a stake in data labelling group Scale AI. This week, Meta announced it was restructuring its AI group -- recently renamed Meta Superintelligence Lab -- into four distinct teams, the fourth overhaul in six months as it has struggled to solidify its organisational structure. The Midjourney partnership marks a shift by Meta away from building all of its AI models and products in house, after its existing ones began to lag rivals. In 2024 Meta rolled out an image generation tool called Imagine, which allows users to generate images from text prompts. Last October it shared a research paper on a movie generation model, Movie Gen, that will generate and edit videos based on text prompts. Meta promised to integrate it fully into Instagram in 2025. However, the integration has yet to happen and industry insiders say the model already appears antiquated compared with Google's Veo 3 and OpenAI's Sora models, which have been released to consumers. The social media company had also abandoned plans to publicly release its flagship Behemoth large language model, according to people familiar with the matter, focusing instead on building new models. Meta had started using third-party models internally for tasks such as coding, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, as faith in its Llama models has waned. San Francisco-based Midjourney, founded in 2021 by David Holz, has become one of the most popular image generation companies, despite its chief executive refusing venture capital and instead opting to self fund. In June, it released its video model V1, which allows users to generate a short video from an existing image. Holz said in a post on X on Friday that "bringing sublime tools of creation and beauty to billions of people is squarely within our mission", adding that Midjourney remained an "independent, community-backed research lab, with no investors".

Meta partners with Midjourney to license AI tech for future products

Aug 22 (Reuters) - Meta has signed a deal with generative AI lab Midjourney to license the startup's "aesthetic technology" for the social media company's future models and products. The technical collaboration will link the companies' research teams, Alexandr Wang, the Facebook parent's chief AI officer, said on Friday. The move signals Meta's (META.O), opens new tab push to differentiate its products on visual quality, as it looks to revitalize its artificial intelligence efforts amid heated competition with rivals, including ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab. Midjourney, which generates images from text prompts, licenses its tools to users through a subscription model. "We are incredibly impressed by Midjourney," Wang said in a post on X, adding that to deliver best products, Meta is combining top talent, a strong compute roadmap and partnerships with leading industry players. Meta and Midjourney did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. The startup's image-generation prowess could help Meta accelerate creative features for users and marketers, potentially lowering content production costs and boosting engagement. The deal comes at a time when Meta has reorganized its AI efforts under Superintelligence Labs, a high-stakes push that followed senior staff departures and lukewarm reception for its latest open-source Llama 4 model. Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Mohammed Safi Shamsi Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Meta will license Midjourney's AI tech to bring better slop to your feed

Alexandr Wang, the new Chief AI Officer at Meta, announced on Friday afternoon that Meta will license Midjourney's "aesthetic technology" for future Meta products and models. Midjourney is best known as an AI image generator, though it can also create short videos. Wang announced the news in a series of posts on X. "Today we're proud to announce a partnership with @midjourney, to license their aesthetic technology for our future models and products, bringing beauty to billions," Wang wrote. "This technical collaboration between our research teams is part of our effort to team up with the best companies in the industry whose work and expertise complements our own. We are incredibly impressed by Midjourney. They have accomplished true feats of technical and aesthetic excellence, and we are thrilled to be working more closely with them." This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. Wang is the new leader of Meta's AI efforts. The 28-year-old wunderkind is the founder of Scale AI, which Meta recently acquired in a $14.3 billion deal, per CNBC. The acquisition was part of a billion-dollar AI talent spending spree, as Zuckerberg poached engineers, researchers, and executives from rivals like ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. More recently, Meta announced a hiring freeze, part of an internal restructuring of the company's AI efforts, which Zuckerberg has said will deliver superintelligence to the world -- a bold promise. The partnership with Midjourney is one of Wang's first big public moves as the company's first-ever Chief AI Officer. So far, Meta's AI image and video generation tools have lagged behind competitors. Like Grok Imagine from xAI, a simple scroll through the Meta AI app will show images and videos that look like the kind of output generated by old models like DALL-E two or three years ago. In comparison, Midjourney has far more advanced image and video models, which is likely the "aesthetic technology" mentioned in Wang's statement on X. The Meta AI app allows users to share images and videos with the world, and it's full of generic AI slop and apparent intellectual property violations. Midjourney's feed looks much cleaner and more sophisticated, though the company was recently sued by Disney and Universal for IP infringement, with the suit calling Midjourney a "bottomless pit of plagiarism." Earlier this year, Midjourney introduced a new AI video tool, which allows users to easily turn images into short video clips. By leveraging Midjourney's latest tools and models, Meta will be able to catch up to rivals like Gemini and ChatGPT. The partnership is another reminder that Meta's internal AI technology has a long way to go to achieve the superintelligence predicted by Zuckerberg.

Meta is partnering with Midjourney and will license its technology for 'future models and products'

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Even three years after its debut, with ever increasing competition in the AI image generation space, Midjourney, the boostrapped San Francisco startup, remains the "gold standard" for its 20 million users -- including us here at VentureBeat, where we use it to generate the "header" art to many of our articles. Apparently, the leaders of Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta feel similarly. Today, Alexandr Wang, the former Scale AI founder and CEO who has become Meta's Chief AI Officer and head of the company's newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), announced a partnership with Midjourney -- believed to be the first of its kind for the independent AI image startup. Meta will "license their aesthetic technology for our future models and products, bringing beauty to billions," Wang wrote on X, a rival social network to Meta's own Threads and Facebook. Midjourney had previously reportedly been in discussions with Elon Musk and xAI for some integration with the latter company's Grok image generation capabilities, but xAI debuted Grok image generation powered by startup Black Forest Labs' Flux AI image model initially, and now appears to have native image generation capabilities. Why Meta wants to partner with Midjourney Wang framed the move as part of a bigger philosophy -- Meta's "all-of-the-above" approach to building advanced AI. That means recruiting top research talent, pouring billions into computing infrastructure, and, in this case, teaming up with a company whose work complements Meta's in ways it can't easily build on its own. Midjourney, Wang said, has achieved "true feats of technical and aesthetic excellence," and Meta is eager to put that expertise to work. For Midjourney, the partnership is an opportunity to see its technology woven into one of the largest digital ecosystems on the planet. But in his own X post, Midjourney founder David Holz was quick to stress what isn't changing: the lab's independence. He reminded followers that Midjourney remains community-backed, has no outside investors, and is still pursuing an ambitious slate of projects aimed at shaping what he calls more "humane futures." On paper, the tie-up makes sense. Meta brings scale, distribution, and staggering compute power. Midjourney brings a creative edge, honed through years of training models to generate imagery that resonates with actual human tastes. It's a marriage of brute force and design flair, an alliance that could help Meta's AI systems feel less utilitarian and more inspired. Details are lacking: how much $$$ is Midjourney getting from the partnership? But for now, the details are hazy. Neither company has said how much the deal is worth. There's been no statements as to when Midjourney's technology will start showing up in Meta's products, or to what degree it will be baked into the company's AI strategy. Is this about upgrading the polish of Meta's widely mocked and recently criticized chatbots -- one of which a user allegedly mistook for a real person and died traveling to visit? Will it be used to enhance Meta's virtual reality worlds? Or supercharge creative tools across Instagram and Facebook? The answers remain vague for now. Similarly, a big question concerns what will happen with Midjourney's stated plans to pursue an external application programming interface (API) for other enterprises to build products and services atop of its powerful image generation models. Last month, the official Midjourney account on X posted that it was "starting to investigate opening up an Enterprise API for people to start integrating Midjourney into their companies/services," and provided an Enterprise API application questionnaire for interested parties to fill out. That application remains online for now, but with Meta inking a deal with Midjourney, the question becomes whether or not is exclusive and will stop plans for a separate Midjourney API in its tracks. I messaged founder Holz and have asked about the API and will update upon receiving a response. Massive AI shakeup at Meta The announcement lands against the backdrop of Meta's massive internal shake-up. In August, the company reorganized its AI operations, creating Meta Superintelligence Labs, with Wang -- who joined after Meta's $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI -- at the helm. The reorg split AI work into four core tracks: research, training, product, and infrastructure, as Business Insider reported initially. Wang now oversees an elite bench of talent recruited from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and beyond -- recruited for eye-watering pay packages in the multi-hundred million dollar range -- now tasked with pushing Meta toward its stated goal: personalized artificial superintelligence for each user. It's an ambitious mission, and a controversial one. Some researchers inside Meta are reportedly uneasy about the pace and scope of the changes. Others see Wang's rapid consolidation of power as both necessary and risky. What's clear is that Meta is betting heavily on AI as its future, and the Midjourney deal is one more sign of just how expansive that bet has become. For Midjourney, aligning with Meta carries its own risks. Independence is central to its identity, and some in its community may worry that partnering with a tech giant could dilute that ethos. Holz's messaging suggests he knows this, which may explain why he emphasized Midjourney's continued autonomy in the same breath as announcing the deal. What happens next will depend on how the partnership translates from announcement to execution. For now, the only certainty is that the ever-changing AI product landscape just took another big twist -- and we're all along for the ride.

Meta partners with Midjourney to license AI tech for future products - The Economic Times

The move signals Meta's push to differentiate its products on visual quality, as it looks to revitalize its artificial intelligence efforts amid heated competition with rivals, including ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Google.Meta has signed a deal with generative AI lab Midjourney to license the startup's "aesthetic technology" for the social media company's future models and products. The technical collaboration will link the companies' research teams, Alexandr Wang, the Facebook parent's chief AI officer, said on Friday. The move signals Meta's push to differentiate its products on visual quality, as it looks to revitalize its artificial intelligence efforts amid heated competition with rivals, including ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Google. Midjourney, which generates images from text prompts, licenses its tools to users through a subscription model. "We are incredibly impressed by Midjourney," Wang said in a post on X, adding that to deliver best products, Meta is combining top talent, a strong compute roadmap and partnerships with leading industry players. Meta and Midjourney did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. The startup's image-generation prowess could help Meta accelerate creative features for users and marketers, potentially lowering content production costs and boosting engagement. The deal comes at a time when Meta has reorganized its AI efforts under Superintelligence Labs, a high-stakes push that followed senior staff departures and lukewarm reception for its latest open-source Llama 4 model.