Stability AI Launches New Membership Model to Explore Commercial Monetization
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2023 has been a dynamic year for Stability AI, as this generative AI startup continues to roll out new models. Now, the company has announced a new membership model aimed at sustaining the continuous release of its models.
Founded in 2019, Stability AI is a venture-backed company that announced a $101 million funding round in 2022. The company started with the Stable Diffusion text-to-image AI model and has monetized in various ways, although it typically offers many of its models for free to researchers for experimentation.
The new membership model aims to standardize the commercial use of Stability AI's models, enabling broader enterprise deployment and allowing other companies to build businesses on top of these models. The membership tiers include free non-commercial personal and research use, a PRO version at $20 per month, and enterprise options for large organizations with customized pricing.
Notably, despite adopting the new membership model, Stability AI remains committed to open-sourcing its models in various ways, including making the source code and weights available to all membership tiers—similar to Meta's approach with the Llama models.
Emad Mostaque, founder and CEO of Stability AI, stated that the new membership model primarily targets self-hosted applications, allowing users full control over their data and products in their own environments. In contrast, Clipdrop is a consumer-facing image application that enables users to experiment and create using Stability AI's models through a consumer website.
Mostaque explained that the new membership model will not change existing usage patterns, but new users will need to obtain memberships for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. He emphasized that even for free individual users, the membership will provide value, including early access to future model releases, invitations to participate in public forums, and opportunities to be featured on Stability AI's channels.
For commercial users, Mostaque is particularly optimistic about the prospects of the new membership model, noting that funded startups and large enterprises have shown strong interest. He stated that as generative AI continues to grow in the business sector, their model suite offers enterprises a straightforward solution.
Stability AI continues to roll out new models, including the high-end text-to-image model SDXL launched in 2023, the faster version SDXL Turbo, StableLM Zephyr3B for text generation, Stable Audio for audio generation, Stable Video for video generation, and StableCode for code generation. The latest Stable Zero123 model was released on December 13, providing new capabilities for creating 3D images.
Mostaque said: "This is one of the first series of 3D models from our talented team, led by Varun Jhampani who joined from Google Brain. We believe next year will be the year of generative media, just as this year has been the year of language models."