Midjourney, the artificial intelligence lab that was an early contender in the AI image generation race, has purchased the astrology app Co-Star. The company plans to offer a new astrology-focused image generator, according to Bloomberg, a first for Midjourney since users must currently belong to the company’s Discord server to use the product. Midjourney burst onto the scene in early 2022, shortly before the explosion of AI tools like ChatGPT. But it’s lagged behind larger competitors like OpenAI and Google, which have thrown billions of dollars at AI image generation. Google’s Nano Banana is considered head and shoulders above Midjourney in AI image quality, but the latter AI company has been experimenting in unexpected spaces like medical scans. Midjourney confirmed to Gizmodo over email that the acquisition of Co-Star actually happened in the spring, but news of the deal only broke this week. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, and Midjourney declined to answer questions beyond just pointing to a blog post from David Holz, the founder of Midjourney.
Holz says he first met the founder of Co-Star, Banu Guler, about five years ago and has been speaking with her for years about “the ways people reflect and make decisions both in the present, future, and over the past thousands of years.”
