Plai Labs is launching its PlaiDay app that allows you to write a text prompt and use generative AI to produce 2D images.
The iOS mobile app adds more functionality beyond Plai Labs’ launch three weeks ago of its text-to-video capabilities available on Discord. Whereas Discord focused on video, this one focuses on images.
As I write this, I’m looking at the images that the app made based on a few photos that I submitted while sitting at my desk. It took some time for them to come back, but not so long that I could have done all of it myself. In fact, I can’t do anything like the art it created.
Chris DeWolfe, CEO of Plai Labs, said in an interview with GamesBeat that PlaiDay lets you re-imagine storytelling by putting you and your friends at the center of a new social AI experience. It is free to use, and I have put it to good use. Text-to-video, as available on Discord, will come to the app later.
“It’s the first AI app that really allows creators to tell stories in a social way, in a collaborative way, with your friends, where you can personalize your stories,” DeWolfe said. “It allows you to bring out your inner artist and you don’t have to be massively creative. You don’t have to be technical at all to use it. But your output can be very creative. And it’s something you can truly do with your friends within a social graph, if you want, or share outside of your social graph.”
The company said its community is growing quickly on Discord, and now the iOS app is going to hit a different audience.
Orchestra platform
PlaiDay is also the first mobile app using the company’s internal Orchestra platform, an AI development solution that enables it to move from R&D to prototype to full-scale production deployments of new features at the pace of innovation – the fastest in history.
Building with Orchestra has enabled Plai Labs to rapidly update the app with a consistent flow of new, innovative, fun generative AI features. DeWolfe said the Orchestra platform can plug in just about any AI too.
The PlaiDay app
PlaiDay enables you and your friends to become part of the content you envision by blending your genuine self and your Likeness— the company’s term for the digital version of you that exists within the app—with the limitless possibilities of generative art. It’s amazing to observe the alpha users engage in creation, collaboration, sharing, and community-building on PlaiDay, Plai Labs said.
DeWolfe likens the PlaiDay app to something like Fortnite or Roblox, where you can express yourself through your avatar and digital items. PlaiDay will also support an open ecosystem.
The visual art created on PlaiDay evokes the gamut of emotions from awe-inspiring and beautiful to downright wacky and hilarious – and everything in between. The way users riff on each others’ creations is spawning entirely new kinds of social connections and in ways the team never predicted.
In addition to fun, intuitive generative art tools, Plai Labs has integrated a feature called Enhance, which leverages large language models (LLMs) to help you along your artistic journey. With Enhance, even if you’re trying generative art for the first time, you can create brilliant, personalized masterpieces with the tap of a button, the company said.
This feature can suggest creative prompt ideas for anyone facing a blank canvas, but can also help refine simple ideas into detailed prompts suitable for artists at any level of experience. Then, once your artwork is ready to go, Enhance can also whip up a humorous caption for your new piece if you’d rather not do it yourself.
The company wants to see how LLM’s can assist in the creative process, and even explored this topic in detail in an academic paper titled LLM as an Art Director (LaDi): Using LLM’s to improve Text-to-Media Generators.
Plai Labs has ambitious plans in the PlaiDay roadmap. The firm envisions a future where everyone has powerful storytelling tools in the palm of their hands – and a platform to amplify their message to the world.
You can download the free PlaiDay app from the App Store today. An Android version is coming soon. Meanwhile, DeWolfe said the company is hiring people and growing fast. The company has 40 people now working on PlaiDay.
Daily drops
Every 24 hours, the Daily Drop gives you a free set of Avatars showcasing your Likeness in a totally new range of styles, characters, and situations. For example, it was recently 80’s Week, and users had a blast seeing themselves in the iconic colors, styles, and settings of that decade.
Hunger Games (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Characters)
This week, in collaboration with Lionsgate, the company released a tie-in with The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. With it, you can transform yourself into your favorite characters in addition to the film’s newly released settings and costumes, using your own Likeness.
As a fan, this is your chance to engage with and share the world of The Hunger Games. DeWolfe said the company has leveraged relationships with the entertainment community and partnered with Lionsgate to do a Hunger Games promotion in time with the new movie. You can customize a picture of yourself and put yourself into the shoes of one of the Hunger Games characters. That gives Lionsgate a different way to interact with fans.
The company will continue to stage thematic and pop culture events like this alongside the evergreen—and ever-growing—library of styles to keep the fun, creativity, and inspiration flowing.
Imagine
Imagine transforms your ideas, expressions, or even emojis into one-of-a-kind, mesmerizing images that feature you and your friends, or craft an exquisite artwork by simply describing whatever you can dream up.
You begin with your vision: Describe what you want to create in a few words. Then you choose your styles, selecting up to two artistic styles to add a creative flair. Then you can include a Likeness (optional): Decide whether to add your own Likeness or someone else’s. The company automatically guards against the creation of inappropriate content, DeWolfe said.
You can tap “Imagine it” to bring the concept to life and the generative AI goes to work. Then you can use the Re-roll option to fine-tune your image, then share your masterpiece with friends or on your social feed.
“If you don’t like it, you keep re-rolling until you get the output of the product that you do want. So the challenge is there for you to come up with something amazing,” Brooks said. “It’s up to the community to judge for how much” it will be shared or liked.
When you post an Imagine to your feed, anyone can take a spin at reimagining it by adding themselves into it or even tweaking the prompt. Just tap ‘Imagine’ on the bottom right of someone’s post to iterate and personalize it.
Restyle
Restyle empowers you to artistically transform otherwise normal pictures and images. You do this through adding a variety of artistic styles to your photos, changing their look dramatically while keeping the key visual elements and Likenesses intact. So, even as the image takes on a completely new aesthetic, the subjects – whether they’re people, pets, or objects – stay present and unmistakably recognizable.
You start with a photo, taking a new photo using PlaiDay or choose one from your existing gallery.
Select a style: Pick from a diverse array of artistic styles, from the timeless to the cutting-edge.
Transform your image: Tap to let Restyle skillfully modify your image, applying your chosen style(s) while preserving the essential Likenesses and elements.
You can adjust your creation with the ‘Re-roll’ feature until it’s just perfect, and then share your uniquely styled image with your friends or on your social feed.
Thanks to seamless integrations, you can easily share your Avatars, Imagines, Replays, and more on TikTok, Instagram, and other social platforms. Or, if you prefer, you can download your creations and share them as you like. You can get notified whenever someone riffs on a prompt that you created. You get more social capital if your creations are re-used by the community.
This is an initial step. Enabled by the Orchestra platform, the company will be launching more features and activations every week or two, including things coming from clients.
Addressing AI and social challenges
Josh Brooks, executive vice president for marketing and operations at Plai Labs, said in an interview that the company is being very careful about making sure users can’t generate inappropriate content with it. So it has terms of service in place to remove any such content, and it can prevent some of these things from being created in the first place.
“There are protections on both sides. One side is the actual written prompt language, which will not allow you to submit things with hate speech,” Brooks said. Additionally, “We have a content moderation group actively engaged in the global feed and have intuitive flagging functions for users to report questionable or unauthorized content in the app or on the website.”
People will retain the rights to the content that they upload, and Plai Labs will also license content, as it does with the Lionsgate partnership.