Exactly.ai Raises $4M to Help Artists Boost Their Output with AI

There is a lot of controversy about how AI is stealing from visual artists. It looks like these are tough and confusing times for creators. So, a new company in London wants to use AI to help artists get back in charge.

The company Exactly.ai says that it uses “generative AI” to help artists legally own their work and make copies of their designs much more quickly and on a larger scale. It now has $4.3 million in seed funding, led by Speedinvest and including InReach Ventures, Cornerstone VC, GuruDev Capital, and a few angel investors. The new business says it has 40,000 registered users.

A New Approach to Creative Ownership

Exactly.ai  was started in 2022 by Tonia Samsonova, who used to be a journalist and sold a Q&A site called The Question to the Russian search engine Yandex. “We let artists, people who can draw, and illustrators train their own AI on their artwork,” Samsonova said about how it works. Following that, they get an algorithm that can make pictures in their own style. All of the inferences and this algorithm belong to them.

The plan is for artists to be able to use Exactly.ai to make their work bigger and then sell or licence it to companies like ad agencies or media outlets. The new company may have a good idea: Fortune Business Insights says that the global market for generative AI will be worth $668 billion by 2030. This niche will get a piece of that very large pie.

Samsonova said the idea came from her own need to scratch an itch. The client always came first, and I wanted those pictures. But the best artists are always busy. For clients, this means being able to work with the world’s best artists. She also said that artists’ clients care about the quality of the images and want to get images for their brands from the best artists in the world. The founder of the company said that Upwork and Fiverr are the main competitors. Artists and illustrators sometimes use these sites to get more work done.