The AI-generated video scene has been hopping this year (or twirling wildly, as the case may be). This past week alone we've seen releases or announcements of OpenAI's Sora, Pika AI's Pika 2, Google's Veo 2, and Minimax's video-01-live. It's frankly hard to keep up, and even tougher to test them all. But recently, we put a new open-weights AI video synthesis model, Tencent's HunyuanVideo, to the test—and it's surprisingly capable for being a "free" model.
Unlike the aforementioned models, HunyuanVideo's neural network weights are openly distributed, which means they can be run locally under the right circumstances (people have already demonstrated it on a consumer 24 GB VRAM GPU) and it can be fine-tuned or used with LoRAs to teach it new concepts.
Notably, a few Chinese companies have been at the forefront of AI video for most of this year, and some experts speculate that the reason is less reticence to train on copyrighted materials, use images and names of famous celebrities, and incorporate some uncensored video sources. As we saw with Stable Diffusion 3's mangled release, including nudity or pornography in training data may allow these models achieve better results by providing more information about human bodies. HunyuanVideo notably allows uncensored outputs, so unlike the commercial video models out there, it can generate videos of anatomically realistic, nude humans.
Google DeepMind, Google’s flagship AI research lab, wants to beat OpenAI at the video-generation game — and it might just, at least for a little while. On Monday, DeepMind announced Veo 2, a next-gen video-generating AI and the successor to Veo, which powers a growing number of products across Google’s portfolio. Veo 2 can create […]
Shutterstock's approach to AI integration focused on the user experience.
dusanpetkovic/Getty Images
Shutterstock added gen AI to its stock-content library to generate $104 million in revenue.
The company has partnered with tech giants including Meta, Amazon, Apple, OpenAI, and Nvidia.
This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.
Shutterstock, founded in 2003 and based in New York, is a global leader in licensed digital content. It offers stock photos, videos, and music to creative professionals and enterprises.
In late 2022, Shutterstock made a strategic decision to embrace generative AI, becoming one of the first stock-content providers to integrate the tech into its platform.
Dade Orgeron, the vice president of innovation at Shutterstock, leads the company's artificial-intelligence initiatives. During his tenure, Shutterstock has transitioned from a traditional stock-content provider into one that provides several generative-AI services.
While Shutterstock's generative-AI offerings are focused on images, the company has an application programming interface for generating 3D models and plans to offer video generation.
Situation analysis: What problem was the company trying to solve?
When the first mainstream image-generation models, such as Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney, were released in late 2022, Shutterstock recognized generative AI's potential to disrupt its business.
"It would be silly for me to say that we didn't see generative AI as a potential threat," Orgeron said. "I think we were fortunate at the beginning to realize that it was more of an opportunity."
He said Shutterstock embraced the technology ahead of many of its customers. He recalled attending CES in 2023 and said that many creative professionals there were unaware of generative AI and the impact it could have on the industry.
Orgeron said that many industry leaders he encountered had the misconception that generative AI would "come in and take everything from everyone." But that perspective felt pessimistic, he added. But Shutterstock recognized early that AI-powered prompting "was design," Orgeron told Business Insider.
Key staff and stakeholders
Orgeron's position as vice president of innovation made him responsible for guiding the company's generative-AI strategy and development.
However, the move toward generative AI was preceded by earlier acquisitions. Orgeron himself joined the company in 2021 as part of its acquisition of TurboSquid, a company focused on 3D assets.
TK
Photo courtesy of Dade Orgeron
Shutterstock also acquired three AI companies that same year: Pattern89, Datasine, and Shotzr. While they primarily used AI for data analytics, Orgeron said the expertise Shutterstock gained from these acquisitions helped it move aggressively on generative AI.
Externally, Shutterstock established partnerships with major tech companies including Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, OpenAI, Nvidia, and Reka. For example, Shutterstock's partnership with Nvidia enabled its generative 3D service.
AI in action
Shutterstock's approach to AI integration focused on the user experience.
Orgeron said the company's debut in image generation was "probably the easiest-to-use solution at that time," with a simple web interface that made AI image generation accessible to creative professionals unfamiliar with the technology.
That stood in contrast to competitors such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, which, at the time Shutterstock launched its service in January 2023, had a basic user interface. Midjourney, for instance, was initially available only through Discord, an online chat service more often used to communicate in multiplayer games.
This focus on accessibility set the stage for Shutterstock.AI, the company's dedicated AI-powered image-generation platform. While Shutterstock designed the tool's front end and integrated it into its online offerings, the images it generates rely on a combination of internally trained AI models and solutions from external partners.
Shutterstock.AI, like other image generators, lets customers request their desired image with a text prompt and then choose a specific image style, such as a watercolor painting or a photo taken with a fish-eye lens.
However, unlike many competitors, Shutterstock uses information about user interactions to decide on the most appropriate model to meet the prompt and style request. Orgeron said Shutterstock's various models provide an edge over other prominent image-generation services, which often rely on a single model.
But generative AI posed risks to Shutterstock's core business and to the photographers who contribute to the company's library. To curb this, Orgeron said, all of its AI models, whether internal or from partners, are trained exclusively on Shutterstock's legally owned data. The company also established a contributor fund to compensate content creators whose work was used in the models' training.
Orgeron said initial interest in Shutterstock.AI came from individual creators and small businesses. Enterprise customers followed more cautiously, taking time to address legal concerns and establish internal AI policies before adopting the tech. However, Orgeron said, enterprise interest has accelerated as companies recognize AI's competitive advantages.
Did it work, and how did leaders know?
Paul Hennessy, the CEO of Shutterstock, said in June the company earned $104 million in annual revenue from AI licensing agreements in 2023. He also projected that this revenue could reach up to $250 million annually by 2027.
Looking ahead, Shutterstock hopes to expand AI into its video and 3D offerings. The company's generative 3D API is in beta. While it doesn't offer an AI video-generation service yet, Orgeron said Shutterstock plans to launch a service soon. "The video front is where everyone is excited right now, and we are as well," he said. "For example, we see tremendous opportunity in being able to convert imagery into videos."
The company also sees value in AI beyond revenue figures. Orgeron said Shutterstock is expanding its partnerships, which now include many of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. In some cases, partners allow Shutterstock to use their tech to build new services; in others, they license data from Shutterstock to train AI.
"We're partnered with Nvidia, with Meta, with HP. These are great companies, and we're working closely with them," he said. "It's another measure to let us know we're on the right track."
On Wednesday, a video from OpenAI's newly launched Sora AI video generator wentviral on social media, featuring a gymnast who sprouts extra limbs and briefly loses her head during what appears to be an Olympic-style floor routine.
As it turns out, the nonsensical synthesis errors in the video—what we like to call "jabberwockies"—hint at technical details about how AI video generators work and how they might get better in the future.
But before we dig into the details, let's take a look at the video.
X, the Elon Musk-owned social network previously known as Twitter, quietly added a new image generator to its Grok assistant this past Saturday. Then, it removed it. Now, it’s bringing it back — and officially announcing it. The image generator, called Aurora, was developed by Musk’s AI company, xAI, and trained on billions of examples from the […]
On Monday, OpenAI released Sora Turbo, a new version of its text-to-video generation model, making it available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers through a dedicated website. The model generates videos up to 20 seconds long at resolutions reaching 1080 p from a text or image prompt.
Open AI announced that Sora would be available today for ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers in the US and many parts of the world but is not yet available in Europe. As of early Monday afternoon, though, even existing Plus subscribers trying to use the tool are being presented with a message that "sign ups are temporarily unavailable" thanks to "heavy traffic."
Out of an abundance of caution, OpenAI is limiting Sora's ability to generate videos of people for the time being. At launch, uploads involving human subjects face restrictions while OpenAI refines its deepfake prevention systems. The platform also blocks content involving CSAM and sexual deepfakes. OpenAI says it maintains an active monitoring system and conducted testing to identify potential misuse scenarios before release.
Sora, OpenAI’s video generator, is launching Monday — at least for some users. YouTuber Marques Brownlee revealed the news in a video published to his channel this morning. Brownlee got early access to Sora, and gave his initial impressions in a 15-minute review. Sora lives on Sora.com, Brownlee said, the homepage for which shows a […]
X, the Elon Musk-owned social network previously known as Twitter, has added a new image generator to its Grok assistant. However, after going live for a few hours on Saturday, the product seemed to disappear for some users. Just like the first image generator X added to Grok in October, this one, called Aurora, appears […]
Google’s video generator is coming to a few more customers — Google Cloud customers, to be precise. On Tuesday, Google announced that Veo, its AI model that can generate short video clips from images and prompts, will be available in private preview for customers using Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s AI development platform. Google says that […]
