Chinese short-video app operator Kuaishou Technology is offering a monthly subscription to its Sora-like artificial intelligence (AI) video generating service, as China’s AI players step up efforts to monetise the cutting-edge technology.
Kuaishou, the major domestic rival of TikTok’s sister app Douyin, is charging 19 yuan (US$2.66) for the first month and 58 yuan per month thereafter under a “gold member” plan for video generation services based on its Kling AI model.
The plan, claimed to be “the lowest price among similar products”, would support the generation of around 3,300 photos and 66 videos per month, according a statement from Kuaishou on Friday.
The move marks the latest effort by a Chinese Big Tech company to step up commercialisation of products in the hotly-contested AI video generation market.
San Francisco-based OpenAI, which pioneered text-to-video generation with the announcement of Sora in February, has yet to make its model available to the general public. In comparison, OpenAI charges US$20 per month for its ChatGPT Plus plan, which includes the DALL-E3 text-to-image generator, but not video generation.
A Kuaishou Technology ad at a subway station in Beijing, China, Feb. 3, 2021. Photo: Bloomberg
Kuaishou also unveiled two premium plans which allow users to generate 15,000 photos and 300 videos under the “platinum plan”, and 40,000 photos and 800 videos under the “diamond plan”.
Released in June, Kling can process text into video clips of up to 2 minutes long with 1080p resolution, while supporting various aspect ratios, Kuaishou said at the time.
The company later upgraded the model to include some new features, including image-to-video, video extension functions, as well as enhanced editing capabilities such as start and end frame control and shot control.
Kling, which was released after Kuaishou’s KwaiYii large language model (LLM) and text-to-image model Kolors, shows how Chinese AI players are finding it increasingly difficult to make money in the overcrowded market.
That was reflected when a heightened price war broke out for commercial AI services. ByteDance’s Doubao models were priced 99.8 per cent less than OpenAI’s GPT-4, while a number of major players – from e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding to social media and video gaming behemoth Tencent Holdings, followed suit. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
When Kuaishou released its second quarter earnings earlier this week, co-founder and CEO Cheng Yixiao said the company would strive to achieve “commercialisation scale” for the Kling model as soon as possible.
Kling has more than one million users and has generated over 10 million videos, Kuaishou said in the earnings report.
The company has also launched the first-ever AI-generated fantasy short drama in China – Legendary Mirrors of Mountains and Seas – which attracted over 50 million views within two weeks of its release in July.
