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A few months after the departure of its founder and former CEO, Stability AI has appointed a new full-time CEO. According to The Information, Prem Akkaraju, who previously led visual effects company Weta Digital, will take over as the CEO. Akkaraju, who co-founded and serves as the executive chairman of Screening Room, had been with Weta Digital since January 2020. Stability AI did not provide an official comment on this report.
This leadership change follows the resignation of Emad Mostaque, the founder and former CEO, nearly three months ago in March. During the interim period, Shan Shan Wong, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, and Christian Laforte, the Chief Technology Officer, served as co-CEOs.
Mostaque’s resignation stemmed from investor concerns about the company’s financial stability and operations. He founded Stability AI in 2019 to advance AI technology. The company is well-known for its Stable Diffusion technology, which generates images from text. On June 12, the company released Stable Diffusion 3 Medium, the fastest and most efficient version of their model to date.
A Reuters report from May 16 highlighted that Stability AI had lost over $30 million in Q1 2023, with revenues under $5 million. The same report noted that the company was seeking external investment. The Information added that alongside the new CEO appointment, Stability AI would receive financial backing from an investor group led by Sean Parker.
Stability AI is expanding its range of models and services. Despite increased competition from companies like OpenAI, Midjourney, and Ideogram in the image generation market, Stability AI has diversified. Beyond image generation, the company develops a code model called Stable Code and a large language model called Stable LM, available in multiple sizes (1.6 billion, 3 billion, and 7 billion parameters).
The company is also active in audio and video domains. Stable Audio 2.0, released on April 3, allows users to generate up to three minutes of audio. Stable Video offers text-to-video generation capabilities, including 3D video creation with Stable Video 3D (SV3D).
A new business model was introduced at the end of last year. In December 2023, Stability AI launched a membership model, requiring commercial users to pay for access. Some model weights remain available under a non-commercial license. The company also provides API access, allowing organizations to pay based on usage, which can be accessed directly or through interfaces like the Stable Artisan Discord bot launched on May 9.
While Stability AI adjusts under new leadership, former CEO Emad Mostaque is busy with a new venture called Schelling AI, which aims to further his vision for decentralized AI. More details about Schelling AI are expected to be shared in July.