The buzz around generative AI is far from fading, as evidenced by Pika, a startup that just secured $55 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Homebrew, Conviction Capital, SV Angel, Ben’s Bites, and notable angel investors such as Adam D’Angelo, Nat Friedman, and Alex Chung. Pika has recently unveiled “Pika 1.0,” a suite of videography tools featuring a cutting-edge generative AI model capable of editing videos in diverse styles like “3D animation,” “anime,” and “cinematic.”
In a blog post, Pika emphasizes the complexity and resource intensity of high-quality video production, positioning itself as a solution to democratize video creation. The startup, founded by former Stanford PhD students Demi Guo and Chenlin Meng, who have backgrounds in AI research, aims to simplify the video-making process. Pika 1.0 competes with other generative AI video tools from players like Runway and Stability AI, but it seeks to stand out with distinctive features.
Pika 1.0 introduces tools to extend video length, transform styles from “live action” to “animated,” and even modify video content, such as changing clothing or adding characters. Despite competition from tech giants like Google and Meta, investors, including Lightspeed, express confidence in Pika’s potential to lead the transformation of professional-quality video creation through generative AI.
The rapid growth of Pika reflects the continued high demand for various generative AI applications, as evident from tools like Midjourney, DALL-E 3, and ChatGPT. According to IDC, generative AI investments are projected to surge from $16 billion in the current year to an impressive $143 billion in 2027. While generative AI currently represents 9% of overall AI spending in 2023, IDC expects this figure to rise to 28% within five years.
Despite this surge in interest and investment, challenges persist in the enterprise adoption of generative AI. A report from O’Reilly indicates that 26% of corporate AI adopters are still in the early stages of piloting generative AI and express concerns about potential challenges, including unexpected outcomes, security, safety, fairness, bias, privacy, legal issues, and copyright ownership of AI-generated output. Nevertheless, the positive reception of generative AI among Gen Z, as revealed in a U.K.-focused poll, suggests a promising future, even as enterprises grapple with deployment hurdles.
