Skip to main content

This new text-to-video AI looks incredible, and you can try it for free

An AI-generated image of a woman wearing a yellow dress seated in front of a similarly colored floral background.
Luma AI

Expectant AI enthusiasts flooded the Luma AI website on Wednesday, resulting in multi-hour waits to access the company’s new free-to-use, high-definition AI video generator, Dream Machine, Venture Beat reports.

What’s all the excitement for? Well, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup’s model promises video generation of up to 120 frames per second for as long as 120 seconds. And based on some of the examples being shared online so far, it’s pretty impressive.

Welcome @LumaLabsAI to the AI Video wars It makes so much sense that your technology – which makes 3D models- lends itself to high quality video generation. I've remade my Brothers Grimm fairy tales video with your new tool. More examples below 👇

So it's Dream Machine. I'm a… pic.twitter.com/KXT9FvurWV

— Max Einhorn (@MaxEinhorn) June 12, 2024

“Hey everyone, thanks so much for all the enthusiasm and support!” Barkley Dai, Luma’s head of product and growth, wrote in a message on the firm’s Discord channel Wednesday. “We are current[ly] facing high demands and working on increasing our capacity! All the generations won’t be lost but it will just be staying in the queue. Will update the status here once we have additional capacity!”

As of Thursday morning, the queue for service with Dream Machine was a little over one minute, a significant improvement over the previous afternoon’s wait times. Part of Dream Machine’s immediate success can be attributed to Luma’s previous efforts to reach out to prominent AI video creators ahead of the public beta release, giving them a sneak preview of the model’s capabilities and allowing them to share their generated creations throughout the day.

Luma AI dropped their Sora competitor & it's insane

The best part? They are actually letting people use it

10 awesome examples with prompts: pic.twitter.com/vcDsAQjjD1

— Allen T. (@Mr_AllenT) June 12, 2024

Initial feedback from the creators was generally positive, with users able to generate five-second-long videos in a couple of minutes based solely from text-based prompts. A number of users even made direct comparisons to OpenAI’s Sora, widely considered to be the current state of the art in AI video generation.

We don't need Sora anymore :) #LumaDreamMachine

I'll be posting more creations soon, this is AMAZING! pic.twitter.com/ldBoPIbeF2

— Kiri (@Kyrannio) June 12, 2024

Dream Machine’s free tier allows users to generate up to 30 video clips per month, though higher paid tiers will allow for up to 2,000 video generations per month at a cost of $499. Luma AI’s offering is merely the latest entry into an increasingly crowded and hotly contested AI space.

Other free services like Google’s Lumiere, Runway, Pika, and Kling, from China’s Kuaishou company, are all similarly looking to chip away at Sora’s lead. You can try Dream Machine for yourself at the Luma AI website.

Andrew Tarantola
Andrew has spent more than a decade reporting on emerging technologies ranging from robotics and machine learning to space…
OpenAI boss takes Sora tech to Hollywood, report claims
An AI image portraying two mammoths that walk through snow, with mountains and a forest in the background.

OpenAI’s new text-to-video artificial intelligence model left jaws on the floor recently when the company offered up examples of what it can do.

Sora, as it’s called, generates astonishingly realistic footage from descriptive text inputs, and while a close look can sometimes reveal slight flaws in the imagery, the technology has left many wondering to what extent it could upend the TV and movie industries.

Read more
OpenAI’s latest Sora video shows an elephant made of leaves
An elephant made of leaves, created by OpenAI's Sora technology.

OpenAI left a lot of jaws on the floor last month when it shared the first footage made by Sora, its AI-powered text-to-video generator.

While not perfect, the quality was extraordinary and left many wondering about the kind of transformational impact that such technology will have on the creative industries, including Hollywood.

Read more
This is the PC gaming hardware I’m still looking forward to in 2024
A PC featuring Lian Li's wireless RGB ecosystem showcased at Computex 2024.

I've looked at a ton of PC gaming hardware this year already, but there's a lot of time left in 2024. Between new generations of CPUs from AMD and Intel, innovative peripherals, and applications of AI in PC gaming that we haven't seen before, there's a lot I'm still looking forward to in the back half of the year.

We've hit the second phase of product releases for 2024, kicking off with AMD's Ryzen 9000 CPUs arriving in July. As we get deeper into the year, there will undoubtedly be more products that we learn about. For now, though, here's what I'm keeping an eye on throughout the rest of the year.
AMD Ryzen 9000

Read more