Meta is partnering with Midjourney to license its "aesthetics technology." Both companies are clear that this is a licensing deal, not an acquisition.
Meta's Chief AI Officer, Alexandr Wang, says the goal is to make Meta's future models and products more visually appealing. Research teams from both companies will work together to boost Meta's design capabilities. It's still unclear if Meta will use Midjourney's image models directly - for now, Wang calls it a research collaboration, not a full integration.
Midjourney founder David Holz says the partnership lines up with Midjourney's mission to put "tools of creation and beauty" in everyone's hands. He stresses that Midjourney will stay independent, community-driven, and investor-free. According to Holz, this is just a licensing deal, not a buyout. All of Midjourney's current tools will stay publicly available, and nothing will change in the day-to-day service.
Holz adds that this is more about collaboration than a deep technical integration through an API, which still hasn't launched. Meta will keep building its own image models, like the new DinoV3, while Midjourney works on its own projects.
Midjourney led the field in AI image generation for a long time, but now faces stiff competition from other companies that often deliver better results for prompt accuracy. Most recently, Midjourney released its first video generator.
Whether Midjourney's tech will actually make Meta's chatbots like "Russian Girl" or "Step Mom" any more "aesthetic" is anyone's guess. The company has taken a lot of heat for its chatbot lineup, but most of the criticism is about a lack of common sense, not looks.
