TL;DR
Midjourney is enabling ideas (and products!) that have a large and untapped market. Businesses and creators that ride this opportunity early have a lot to gain.
Midjourney is big and impressive
Over 14.5 million users have registered with Midjourney. 1.5 to 2.5 million users are active at any point in time. The tool has already generated many images- see this, this and this. However, few - if any - of these have been commercialized in any significant way.
Images today will be products tomorrow
The likelihood of an AI rendered image becoming a meme, the meme a product, and the product a successful product is real. Go Ji’s work with Lego Figurines stands out as a great example of this. His work inspired me to do something similar with Hanuman (a Hindu God) and Monkey King (from Journey to the West). See below.
Hanuman
Monkey King
Such creations offer an opportunity to research and experiment new product ideas
Seeing the response to Go Ji’s work, it’s not hard to imagine that a savvy company might use it to research and experiment with a limited edition product line.
Gen AI is turning out to be a creative tool that is infinitely stretchable and available on tap
The examples above are not random. Ge nAI tools like Midjourney are turning creativity into a platform that’s infinitely stretchable and available to all. If you like to imagine concepts, ideas, and possibilities, Midjourney can augment your abilities. It gives shape and form to your ideas, and makes them tangible and easier to socialize.
Before long, there could be a large market for products and concepts created with tools like these. One can foresee a new generation of creators and entrepreneurs bringing these products to the market while uncovering many hitherto overlooked niches.
Before long our tools will also start imagining
Looking ahead, it’s not hard to see how tools like Midjourney will start learning from those millions of ”imagine” prompts and start giving us ideas about what else we could be imagining. That’s when we’ll see human imagination attaining escape velocity!
What will you imagine and build then?
A note about ownership rights
It’s important to also think about the ownership rights for these creations. Where should/will the IP live? Right now creators own the rights and Mid Journey has an unlimited license. Going forward, there could be different subscription tiers with an option for creators to fully own their creations.
Note: All products, logos, images, company names are trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective owners. Using these here does not imply any affiliation with, or endorsement by them. No ownership or affiliation is claimed.