Meitu riding cutting-edge AI breakthroughs

Chinese tech company Meitu Inc, which is known for its popular image-editing app and content sharing software, is doubling down on artificial intelligence-powered large language models, which are expected to see a wide range of applications in fields like e-commerce, advertising, gaming, film, television and animation.

Wu Xinhong, founder, chairman and CEO of Meitu, said AI is disrupting the traditional imaging and design industry, and serves as a significant driving force in bolstering innovation and improving work efficiency.

The multimodal LLMs that integrate different types of content like text, images, audio and video into AI models are key to the development of AI technology overall, Wu said, adding that Meitu is mainly concentrating on the visual domain, which covers the creation of images and videos.

He said generative AI technology will gradually lower the threshold of content creation and improve the production efficiency of the imaging and video industry. Meitu will continue to invest in LLMs and bolster the application of AI in more sectors and scenarios, which presents huge growth potential while speeding up its monetization push.

LLMs refer to computer algorithms that are trained with huge amounts of data and are capable of generating content such as images, text, audio and video. They are the key technology underpinning ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by US-based AI research company OpenAI.

Meitu has updated its visual large model called MiracleVision. The latest version boasts improved performance in semantic understanding, image stability and continuity of actions compared with previous models. It has also released six AI tools covering image editing, professional video creation, commercial photography and commercial design.

Moreover, the company is expanding its presence in overseas markets, with the number of users abroad expected to account for more than 40 percent of its total users in the future, Wu said. As of Tuesday, total VIP users of Meitu stood at 10.63 million worldwide, hitting a new high.

Meitu generated 2.7 billion yuan ($372.3 million) in revenue last year, an increase of 29.3 percent year-on-year, while its adjusted net profit reached 370 million yuan in 2023, up 233.2 percent, mainly driven by AI tech breakthroughs.

Chen Duan, director of the Digital Economy Integration Innovation Development Center at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said AI-generated content (AIGC) will lead to a new revolution in the field of digital content production, and bolster innovation in the digital culture industry.

Chinese tech enterprises have unique advantages in expanding AI application scenarios compared with their foreign peers, based on China's enormous domestic social networks and the world's largest number of active internet users, she added.

Market consultancy Gartner predicts that by 2025, generative AI will account for 10 percent of all data created, compared with less than 1 percent in 2022, and could be used for a range of activities such as creating software code, facilitating drug development and targeted marketing.

AIGC-related technologies will improve the productivity of content production and inject fresh impetus into China's economic growth, said Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee for Information and Communication Economy, which is under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Pan called for more efforts to beef up self-developed innovation abilities in computing power chips and programming software, as well as increase investments in basic scientific research to catch up with foreign counterparts in the global AI chatbot race.

Meitu's efforts to provide more AI tools for various scenarios will help the company serve more enterprise users, enrich its monetization channels and bolster its revenue by increasing the number of paying users, said Wang Qinglin, a senior analyst at market consultancy iiMedia Research.