Meta strikes deal with Midjourney to boost AI visuals across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp

Meta struck a deal with artificial intelligence (AI) image startup Midjourney to license its technology for future products, signaling the social media giant’s new strategy of partnering rather than building all AI tools internally.

The partnership gives Meta access to Midjourney’s “aesthetic technology” for creating AI-generated images and videos. Alexandr Wang, Meta’s chief AI officer, announced the collaboration on Friday on social media.

“We are incredibly impressed by Midjourney,” Wang said in his post. “They have accomplished true feats of technical and aesthetic excellence, and we are thrilled to be working more closely with them.”

Neither company revealed the financial terms of the deal.

The agreement includes technical collaboration between research teams from both companies. This goes beyond simply using Midjourney’s existing tools across Meta’s platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Wang described the move as part of Meta’s “all-of-the-above approach” to AI development.

“This means world-class talent, ambitious compute roadmap, and working with the best players across the industry,” he explained.

Meta has been scrambling to catch up with rivals like OpenAI and Google in the AI race. The company recently reorganized its AI efforts under Meta Superintelligence Labs, with Wang leading the charge after Meta invested $14.3 billion in his previous company, Scale AI.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been aggressively recruiting AI researchers with compensation packages worth over $100 million.

The Midjourney partnership could help Meta improve visual content across its platforms. The company already offers AI image generation through its Meta AI app and has added image creation buttons to Facebook posts. Users can also generate AI images in WhatsApp and Instagram chats.

Midjourney founder David Holz emphasized his company’s independence despite the new partnership.

“They have no investors,” Holz said in his own social media post. “We remain an independent, community-backed research lab.”

The San Francisco startup has built a reputation for creating high-quality AI images since launching in 2022. By 2023, reports suggested the company was generating $200 million in revenue through subscription plans ranging from $10 to $120 monthly.

Midjourney recently added video generation capabilities, putting it in competition with other AI video tools like OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo.

The partnership comes as Midjourney faces legal challenges. Disney and Universal sued the startup in June, claiming it used copyrighted material to train its AI models. However, recent court cases have generally sided with tech companies in similar disputes.

Meta’s deal with Midjourney follows other major AI investments, including a separate $10 billion cloud computing agreement with Google reported this week.

The move reflects how even tech giants are finding it more practical to partner with specialized AI companies rather than develop every capability internally.