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The generative AI hype has n’t died down yet .
Case in decimal point , Pika , a startup creating an AI - power platform to edit and generate videos from captions and still images , today announced that it elevate $ 55 million in a financial backing round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Homebrew , Conviction Capital , SV Angel , Ben ’s Bites and noteworthy backer investor let in Quora beginner Adam D’Angelo , old-hat - GitHub chief executive officer Nat Friedman and Giphy co - founder Alex Chung .
The fresh tranche comes just six months after Pika emerged from stealth and co-occur with the early access launching of what Pika ’s call “ Pika 1.0 , ” a new cortege of videography tool that introduce a productive AI model capable of editing videos in a reach of styles , like “ 3D life , ” “ anime ” and “ cinematic . ”
“ Video is at the heart of entertainment , yet the summons of create high - quality videos to date is still complicated and resource - intensive , ” Pika writes in ablog postpublished on its website this cockcrow . “ When we started Pika six month ago , we wanted to push the boundaries of technology and design a future interface of video making that is effortless and approachable to everyone . Since then , we ’re proud to have grown the Pika community to half a million users , who are sire jillion of videos per hebdomad . ”
Pika was co - set up by Demi Guo and Chenlin Meng , both former PhD students in Stanford ’s Artificial Intelligence Lab . Prior to analyse at Stanford , Guo worked as an engineer at Meta ’s AI enquiry sectionalisation , while Meng co - author a number of AI research papers , include several pertain to procreative AI .
Pika competes against productive AI video recording putz and models from the the like ofRunwayandStability AI . But with Pika 1.0 , Pika ’s looking to up its game with several differentiating feature of speech .
For deterrent example , Pika 1.0 ship with a tool that can extend the length of existing videos or transform them into different styles , like “ alive activity ” to “ animate ” — or expand the canvas or aspect ratio of a video . Another faculty edit out video content using AI , like changing someone ’s clothing or even adding another character .
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We ’ll have to put those capabilities to the mental testing once Pika 1.0 becomes widely available . But for what it ’s worth , Lightspeed — which is also an investor in Stability AI — has assurance in the program — even as technical school giants likeGoogleandMetatelegraph that they , too , are working on productive AI tools for video .
“ Just as other young AI product have done for text and image , professional - quality video recording creation will also become democratise by generative AI . We trust Pika will lead that transmutation , ” Lightspeed ’s Michael Mignano said in a pressure discharge . “ Given such an impressive technical foundation , rout in an early passion for creativeness , the Pika squad seems destined to shift how we all share our taradiddle visually . At Lightspeed , we could n’t be more excited to support their mission to allow anyone to bring their originative imagination to life through video , and we ’re thrilled to be investing alongside other astonishing investors at the forefront of AI . ”
Pika ’s rapid growth is ruminative of the continued , strong demand for reproductive AI of all flavors — from tools likeMidjourneyandDALL - E 3toChatGPT .
In a recentreport , IDC project that procreative AI investment will rise up from $ 16 billion this yr to a whopping $ 143 billion in 2027 . While reproductive AI account for just 9 % of overall AI spending in 2023 , the firm expects that ’ll increase to 28 % within five years .
The spending might just be justified . A recentpoll — albeit concentrate only on users from the U.K. — found that Gen Z is embrace generative AI , with four in five ( 79 % ) teenagers aged 13 - 17 reporting having used generative AI tools , apps and services including ChatGPT and Snapchat ’s My AI .
Then again , Gen Zers are n’t necessarilypayingfor generative AI . And enterprise client , which have the biggest coffer to drop on it , are encounter hurdles deploying some forms of the tech .
O’Reilly ’s 2023 reproductive AI in the enterprisereportreveals that many corporate AI adopters ( 26 % ) are still in the early microscope stage of navigate generative AI , and are deeply worried about the potential challenges present and future surrounding the technical school — including unexpected outcome , security measures , safety , candor , prejudice and privacy . The difficulty of finding business use case and concerns about legal issues ( like who possess the right of first publication over AI - generated output ) are holding generative AI back , the report imply , as are badly conceive and poorly implemented AI solutions .
