Chinese AI conquers foreigners and tops the list for many days

How did the "Clay AI" filter of Remini APP explode on the Internet and become the first popular generative AI product this year? This article deeply analyzes the technical principles, market strategies and challenges behind this phenomenon, providing a unique perspective for readers who are concerned about the application and consumption trends of AI technology.

The "clay AI" ugly photos that can be generated with one click have gone viral on the Internet! People not only make ugly clay photos of themselves going out, headshots, and photos with animals, but also turn celebrities, characters in film and television dramas, emoticons, etc. into "clay figures" and share them online, receiving millions of likes.

The clay photos of the "Empresses in the Palace" series were praised by netizens, and some classic expressions were almost ruined. The clay photos of ordinary people also have different expressions, and the expressions are very well grasped, looking ugly and cute. Many netizens exclaimed "I can play with this clay filter all night" and "It feels like the whole world has become cute in the clay photos!"

Most of these ugly photos come from an app called Remini, which is currently operated by the Italian company Bending Spoons. After launching the clay filter function that makes people look ugly, Remini's downloads soared during the just-passed "May Day" holiday, directly rushing to the top of the domestic iOS free app download list and dominating the list for many consecutive days, becoming the first popular generative AI product this year.

Although Remini is operated by a foreign company, it is actually made by the Chinese.

In 2019, Dagong Technology, a Chinese company that started out with image restoration algorithms, studied how to use professional image processing technology on the consumer side and launched Remini for overseas markets. This image enhancement app uses artificial intelligence technology to repair blurry and old photos, and has received a warm response in overseas markets, gaining its first wave of popularity.

In 2023, Remini launched the "AI Photo Image" and "Baby AI Generation" functions, which went viral on social media such as TikTok. The product once again gained popularity and topped the US App Store overall list, where it remained at the top for several weeks.

In the past two years, the explosion of AI big models abroad has influenced many Chinese companies to follow suit in the field of artificial intelligence. AI big models have a wide range of application scenarios, attracting a lot of attention, and many products have become popular. With the explosion of Remini, AI has also become popular in a wider range of applications.

The “ugly photos” went viral online, and netizens’ comments were also full of joy. Some shared, “The clay filter is so fun, it’s like entering the world of a cartoon,” “I laughed at myself after being made of clay, but it was so ugly, but I was addicted,” “The uglier the photo, the more unexpected the generated image will be,” and some said, “The circle of friends is full of ugly photos with weird styles, it’s so funny,” and “Clay, are you polite? Hahaha!”

1. Why are AI ugly photos so popular?

Currently, Remini is only available on the iOS App Store in China, and Android users cannot use it yet. For iOS users, you need to download it for free on the Apple AppStore. After downloading, open the Remini software and you will find that it provides users with a one-week free trial period, after which it will be charged according to the package. The cost of the advanced package is 548 yuan per year and 68 yuan per week. It can be downloaded and used on a computer and can also process video files; the cost of the basic package is 228 yuan per year and 38 yuan per week.

The specific gameplay of "Clay AI" is very simple. Users find "Discover new styles" on the Remini homepage, select "Clay Filter", then click "Pick a Photo" to upload the picture, and wait for about 10-30 seconds to generate the clay photo.

Before the May Day holiday, some people shared clay special effects pictures on social platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu. The media reported that "before April 29, Remini was ranked outside the top 100 on the iOS app list, and on April 30, it ranked second on the app list." Qimai Data (a mobile product business intelligence analysis platform) shows that before April 28, Remini's downloads were about 3,000. During the May Day holiday, Remini's downloads in China soared, and on May 1, the downloads increased to 285,300 times. From May 2 to 8, the total downloads were estimated to be 1.9113 million times in one week.

During the May Day holiday, a large number of people who were crazy about playing with clay filters emerged online. They said, "Everything can be made into clay. These days, all the emoticons I'm familiar with have become clay-style, which is unimaginably funny." Others said, "The effect of clay animation is too cute, and it feels like a fairy tale." "I tried a hundred of them in one day, and the effect was as surprising as opening a blind box, and I can't get enough of it."

It is no coincidence that clay filters became popular during the May Day holiday.

During the May Day holiday, people traveled and were keen to post travel photos. The ugly and cute clay photos were different from the traditional beautiful travel photos, which immediately caught people's curiosity. These "ugly photos" spread wildly through social media, attracting more people to try. It's no surprise that Remini quickly became popular.

This is the third time that Remini has become popular. Unlike most photo editing tools in the past, Remini did not become a short-lived product, but returned to the public eye after a period of time and became popular again, which is inseparable from the "AI vision" of its creators and operators behind it.

2. China’s AI overseas sales have become a hit

Remini’s technical background cannot be ignored. It was originally an overseas product developed by Beijing Dagong Technology Co., Ltd. Dagong Technology was founded in 2018 and focuses on scientific research and application in the field of AI image processing.

On the B-side, Dagong Technology applies AI technology to the fields of old photo restoration and image quality enhancement, providing services to many domestic and foreign film studios, TV stations, and film and television post-production companies. For C-end users, it has developed two major products, the "You and Me in the Past" APP for the domestic market and the "Remini" APP for overseas markets, which use AI technology to restore blurred and old photos.

When sharing the product's popularity, Huang Shuo, CEO of Da Gong Technology, said that a few months after "You and Me Back Then" was launched in 2019, some celebrity fans restored the celebrities' childhood photos through the APP, attracting more celebrity fans to join. Many topics about "celebrity childhood restored photos" appeared on Weibo, and some topics were once on the hot list. The product received a lot of attention.

In overseas markets, based on users’ needs to restore old photos and videos, the company developed an overseas version of the APP Remini with the same image restoration function. After the product was launched, it began to grow within two months, and grew rapidly during Christmas and other periods, with some overseas markets experiencing explosive growth.

The two products have become hot-sellers in the global market.

In the following years, virtual digital humans became popular on the Internet, and artificial intelligence technology was more widely used. Dagong Technology expanded its business beyond image restoration and launched a digital human rapid generation project in 2022, making a breakthrough in the field of 3D digital human generation. Remini, which was once very popular, was acquired by the Italian company Bending Spoons after it had a certain user base, opening a new chapter.

Bending Spoons started out by investing in acquisitions, acquiring products with mature brands, user groups and markets. It has a large number of popular apps, such as video editors Splice and Filmic, event startup Meetup, and also acquired domestic note-taking software Everonote. After acquiring Remini, Bending Spoons did not focus on image restoration and image quality enhancement functions, but on the field of artificial intelligence, promoting AI photo editing functions.

In 2023, Remini launched the AI ​​photo function, where users only need to upload 8-12 photos of themselves to get a set of photos, which gained a wave of popularity in the overseas market. Later, Remini developed the "Baby AI generator" function, which can predict the appearance of the baby in the future. Users only need to upload photos of their parents, and Remini will generate photos of the future baby.

Both of these features are very popular, and coupled with the explosive spread of social media such as TikTok, Remini became popular again and topped the US application software list many times in July 2023.

3. How profitable is the AI ​​business?

Bending Spoons stands out in the market by relying on the "acquisition + transformation" strategy. In March this year, A16z, a well-known Silicon Valley venture capital company, released a report listing the world's top 100 generative AI consumer applications. Remini, owned by Bending Spoons, ranked among the top five mobile applications.

Remini's ability to make money is also quite good. According to reports, the Bending Spoons team said in an interview that from July 2 to July 15, 2023, Remini's global downloads were about 40 million times in two weeks, and the net income from in-app purchases in July was about 11.43 million US dollars. After deducting the share of Apple's app market, the estimated revenue reached 7 million US dollars. Qimai data shows that Remini's downloads surged in early May this year, with more than 1.7 million downloads in the iOS Chinese region in a week, and revenue exceeded 25,000 US dollars (180,000 RMB).

According to the analysis of Weibo blogger "优設AIGC", according to Qimai data, Remini's overall revenue between May 2023 and May 2024 will reach 120 million US dollars. This is an eye-catching figure, because Bending Spoons' products have achieved 100 million MAUs (monthly active users), 500 million downloads, and revenue of 380 million US dollars in 2023, and it is expected to reach 500 million US dollars this year.

Although Remini has brought considerable wealth to Bending Spoons, some people have expressed concerns that the brand's popularity will not last long. The analysis mainly includes the following factors.

First of all, the price is high. ChatGPT membership is $20/month, equivalent to 34 yuan/week, and Remini's price is 68 yuan/week, twice that of ChatGPT. Many people are willing to spend money for the fun of clay ugly photos, but stop at the price. They either choose a 7-day free trial or look for proxy services on Xianyu. "The charge for proxy photos ranges from 0.3 to 2 yuan, which is very cheap in comparison."

The second is the user retention problem. Similar products have appeared many times, such as Face Meng, which makes cartoon avatars, and AI face-changing software ZAO, which both became quiet after becoming popular. Last year, Miaoya Camera, a photo generation tool based on AI technology, also became popular and topped the iOS "app" rankings many times, but its popularity declined after more than a month. Some people concluded that this kind of "short-term product that becomes popular with a single function is difficult to retain users."

Then the technology is replicable. According to reports, some industry insiders believe that the technical principle of the "clay AI" effect is not very complicated. With the help of the LoRA model, a certain number of clay-style photos are used to train the style and characteristics of the model, and the process of generating filters is equivalent to AI redrawing. At present, the intelligent AI drawing software Midjourney also supports similar clay transfers, and China's Meitu Xiuxiu has also launched the "clay filter" function, which is free to use.

Remini still has flaws. Some users found that it was not accurate in recognizing the side of a face, and the facial features were sometimes "flying around" in the resulting renderings; gender switching was also hilarious, with some people complaining that "this APP does not agree with the opposite sex being together? A couple who love the outdoors put their photos into the clay AI filter and got a lot of brotherly photos."