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This new text-to-video AI looks incredible, and you can try it for free

An AI-generated image of a woman wearing a yellow dress seated in front of a similarly colored floral background.
Luma AI

Expectant AI enthusiasts flooded the Luma AI website on Wednesday, resulting in multi-hour waits to access the company’s new free-to-use, high-definition AI video generator, Dream Machine, Venture Beat reports.

What’s all the excitement for? Well, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup’s model promises video generation of up to 120 frames per second for as long as 120 seconds. And based on some of the examples being shared online so far, it’s pretty impressive.

Welcome @LumaLabsAI to the AI Video wars It makes so much sense that your technology – which makes 3D models- lends itself to high quality video generation. I've remade my Brothers Grimm fairy tales video with your new tool. More examples below 👇

So it's Dream Machine. I'm a… pic.twitter.com/KXT9FvurWV

— Max Einhorn (@MaxEinhorn) June 12, 2024

“Hey everyone, thanks so much for all the enthusiasm and support!” Barkley Dai, Luma’s head of product and growth, wrote in a message on the firm’s Discord channel Wednesday. “We are current[ly] facing high demands and working on increasing our capacity! All the generations won’t be lost but it will just be staying in the queue. Will update the status here once we have additional capacity!”

As of Thursday morning, the queue for service with Dream Machine was a little over one minute, a significant improvement over the previous afternoon’s wait times. Part of Dream Machine’s immediate success can be attributed to Luma’s previous efforts to reach out to prominent AI video creators ahead of the public beta release, giving them a sneak preview of the model’s capabilities and allowing them to share their generated creations throughout the day.

Luma AI dropped their Sora competitor & it's insane

The best part? They are actually letting people use it

10 awesome examples with prompts: pic.twitter.com/vcDsAQjjD1

— Allen T. (@Mr_AllenT) June 12, 2024

Initial feedback from the creators was generally positive, with users able to generate five-second-long videos in a couple of minutes based solely from text-based prompts. A number of users even made direct comparisons to OpenAI’s Sora, widely considered to be the current state of the art in AI video generation.

We don't need Sora anymore :) #LumaDreamMachine

I'll be posting more creations soon, this is AMAZING! pic.twitter.com/ldBoPIbeF2

— Kiri (@Kyrannio) June 12, 2024

Dream Machine’s free tier allows users to generate up to 30 video clips per month, though higher paid tiers will allow for up to 2,000 video generations per month at a cost of $499. Luma AI’s offering is merely the latest entry into an increasingly crowded and hotly contested AI space.

Other free services like Google’s Lumiere, Runway, Pika, and Kling, from China’s Kuaishou company, are all similarly looking to chip away at Sora’s lead. You can try Dream Machine for yourself at the Luma AI website.

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Andrew Tarantola
Andrew has spent more than a decade reporting on emerging technologies ranging from robotics and machine learning to space…
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