Noticing a sudden rash of your social media friends posting photos of themselves that look like they’re ripped from a fantasy novel? You can thank the new Lensa AI app for that latest trend. After launching in late November, it quickly climbed to the top of the app charts as people went nuts for the AI-generated magic avatars that are popping up everywhere going into the holiday season.
According to TechCrunch, the app uses the open source Stable Diffusion model to create the images. But first, users have to upload at least 10 to 20 photos of themselves for the AI to approximate what they’d look like if they were drawn by a real, live artist. As for how much it costs, well, Lensa AI is theoretically free, but you won’t get much out of it without paying a few bucks. Especially if you want to create magic avatars, which is naturally, the app’s main draw.
When you download Lensa AI, you’re immediately greeted with a pop-up inviting you to join a seven-day free trial to use their AI editing tools — if you don’t cancel in time, you’ll be charged $39.99 for unlimited use of the app for a year. You can bypass this screen without committing to the trial, but the free version of the app is very limited and doesn’t include the viral magic avatar feature.
The good news is you don’t have to drop the full $39.99 to generate a magic avatar. You can make an in-app purchase of $3.99 to get 50 unique avatars or “five variations of 10 different styles.”
(Via TechCrunch)