Midjourney

Midjourney is an independent research lab that makes an AI image generator. David Holz, who earlier co-founded Leap Motion, started it. The tool opened to a public beta in July 2022 and quickly spread among artists and designers.

For its first years Midjourney ran only inside Discord. Users typed prompts in a chat channel and received a grid of images to refine. A web interface followed, with a gallery and editing tools. Model versions have improved realism, text rendering and control over style.

Midjourney is funded by subscriptions rather than outside investors. It has no free plan. The company added video generation in 2025. Artists and studios have sued Midjourney and similar firms over training data, and those cases are still moving through the courts. The team is small compared with other AI companies. Midjourney is known for a distinct painterly style and has a large user community. Images created on paid plans can be used commercially, subject to the terms of service. The company publishes little about its inner workings and has not taken outside funding.