Pika 1.5 provides new Pikaffects: crumble, dissolve, deflate, ta-da!

Pika a.ok.a Pika Labs or Pika AI, the Palo Alto, California-based startup that has raised $55 million to disrupt video manufacturing with its video AI fashions of the identical identify, is additional increasing the free particular results customers can entry by way of its web-based AI image-to-video generator.

Pika 1.5, its newest AI video mannequin, now consists of the flexibility to crumble, dissolve, deflate and “ta-da” video topics — the final of those primarily making a video topic disappear behind a material.

Customers can merely add a picture to the location and Pika 1.5 will flip it right into a video with a corresponding animation. The person guides which animation is utilized by deciding on it from a button beside the “Picture” attachment icon (paperclip) labeled “Pikaeffect” with a magic wand beside it.

The brand new AI powered particular results — or “Pikaffects, within the firm’s parlance — be a part of six others beforehand unveiled earlier this month: Explode, squish, soften, crush, inflate and “cake-ify,” the latter of which turns any uploaded nonetheless picture into an “is it cake?” video the place the reply is a powerful “sure!”

Sadly, VentureBeat has been unable to make use of the brand new results but as after we tried, the location stated “We’re experiencing excessive demand proper now (how flattering)!”

Nonetheless, because the AI panorama evolves, Pika’s distinctive method to video manipulation units it aside from the rising subject of AI-driven content material era.

Whereas Pikaffects cater to customers looking for inventive transformations, conventional options like lip-syncing and AI sound results stay accessible on the sooner Pika 1.0 mannequin. Paid subscribers have the pliability to change between Pika 1.5 and 1.0, relying on their mission wants.

The place Pika got here from

Pika Labs, co-founded by former Stanford AI researchers Demi Guo and Chenlin Meng, first launched its AI video platform in late 2023. The corporate has quickly scaled, reaching over half 1,000,000 customers in lower than a 12 months.

Not like many AI video platforms that focus totally on realism, Pika takes a distinct route by prioritizing inventive manipulation.

These results allow customers to reshape video topics in methods that aren’t simply visually impactful but in addition technologically intriguing, providing hands-on AI practitioners a sandbox for experimentation.

For professionals managing machine studying fashions or integrating new AI instruments, Pika Labs’ newest options might current new alternatives to deploy progressive content material options.

The platform permits the fast software of results by way of a user-friendly interface whereas nonetheless enabling deeper integration by way of text-to-video (T2V) and image-to-video (I2V) workflows.

Subscription pricing

To accommodate a various vary of customers, Pika Labs gives 4 subscription plans:

1. Primary (Free): This entry-level plan supplies 150 month-to-month video credit and entry to the Pika 1.5 options, making it appropriate for informal customers or these curious in regards to the platform.
2. Customary ($8/month, billed yearly): With 700 month-to-month credit, entry to each Pika 1.5 and Pika 1.0, and sooner era occasions, this plan gives extra flexibility for content material creators trying to produce extra movies.
3. Professional ($28/month, billed yearly): This plan consists of 2,000 month-to-month credit and even sooner era occasions, catering to customers with greater content material calls for.
4. Limitless ($76/month, billed yearly): Designed for energy customers, this plan permits limitless video credit, providing the quickest era occasions accessible on the platform.

The up to date credit score construction (15 credit per five-second clip) permits for a scalable method to video era. The varied subscription tiers accommodate totally different wants, from gentle experimentation to intensive manufacturing, making certain that each particular person contributors and bigger groups can discover an reasonably priced resolution.

These versatile pricing choices make Pika Labs accessible to smaller groups and bigger organizations alike, permitting AI engineers to handle prices whereas experimenting with new video capabilities.

Trying to distinguish amid a crowded sea of rivals

The transfer by Pika to additional differentiate its video AI mannequin from rivals akin to Runway, Luma, Kling, and Hailuo comes amid intensifying competitors within the nascent {industry}, and follows Adobe’s transfer this week at its MAX convention in Miami Seaside, Florida, to start providing a preview of its personal “enterprise protected” AI video mannequin Firefly Video, educated on licensed knowledge.

Pika, like most different generative AI startups, has not disclosed its exact coaching dataset. Different rivals akin to Runway have been sued by artists for alleged copyright infringement over coaching AI fashions on knowledge scraped from the online, together with many different artworks and movies, and certain many copyrighted ones. That case, which additionally names AI picture generator Midjourney and Stability, is transferring ahead towards a trial however has but to be determined.