AI-generated anime selfies propel magnificence app to prime in Japan

• By Grace Huang and Jane Zhang / Bloomberg

The flexibility to show a consumer’s selfie into an anime character has turbocharged an app developed by Meitu Inc (美圖) to the highest of Japan’s obtain rankings over the previous week, spurring an enormous soar within the Hong Kong-based agency’s shares.

Meitu is up greater than 50 % over the previous couple of weeks, as its app reached the highest of Apple Inc’s free iPhone downloads chart and No. 2 on Android’s Google Play in Japan, knowledge.ai figures confirmed.

Whereas not new to the Japanese market, the important thing novelty within the magnificence app was the addition of the choice to remodel {a photograph} into an anime-style image with the assistance of synthetic intelligence (AI).

Meitu has been engaged on AI photograph instruments since 2017, and its work has begun to repay with the anime-style selfies, which hit the market in China on Nov. 24 and globally three days later, Meitu CEO Wu Xinhong (吳欣鴻) stated.

Since final week, the Meitu app has been among the many prime three most downloaded on Apple’s App Retailer in nations together with the US, Brazil, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Wu stated.

World downloads surged 79 % within the week commencing Nov. 28, knowledge.ai figures confirmed.

“We’re seeing an explosion of AI-generated content material and its enormous potential,” Wu stated. “It’s an unprecedented alternative for us, a technological revolution.”

Using AI to generate photographs has taken off in recognition this yr with the launch of text-to-image programs reminiscent of Midjourney and OpenAI’s Dall-E. The know-how is just not with out its controversy, however its enchantment and accessibility have helped it proliferate.

Meitu’s strategy differs, in making use of a mode switch onto an present picture. The corporate additionally simply launched the choice so as to add refined animations — reminiscent of falling cherry blossom leaves — to its AI-generated anime avatars.

Japan has confirmed an keen adopter of this new pattern.

College of Tokyo professor Fujio Toriumi stated that 40 % of hashtagged AI-generated photographs on Twitter since June have come from the nation.

Torumi, whose work contains finding out information-sharing on Twitter following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, collaborated with the Nikkei Inc to research the information.

“Japan has a tradition of sharing manga on Twitter,” Toriumi stated, including that the novelty of utilizing AI to generate related footage is “each a menace and a shock” to that established viewers, however many are embracing it out of curiosity.

“For most individuals, it’s a one-shot, however I believe some will proceed utilizing it in distinctive methods,” Toriumi stated.

At its peak, the AI artwork fascination was producing near 80,000 Twitter posts per day trip of Japan, though the present move is about one-third of that, Toriumi stated.

Nonetheless, he anticipates extra new makes use of sooner or later, together with AI-generated trend fashions for garments firms promoting gear on-line.