MiniMax AI

What is MiniMax AI?

MiniMax AI is a catch-all term for text-to-video and other generative AI tools from Chinese AI startup MiniMax. The company’s first product, Video-01, generates hyper-realistic moving images of humans. It’s known for rendering accurate hand motions – a capability that competing AI video products like OpenAI‘s Sora have struggled with.

Users input a text description into Video-01 to generate an AI-generated video up-to six seconds long. After receiving the text prompt, the software takes about two minutes to create a video. Video-01 was released to the public on 2nd September, 2024.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. What is MiniMax AI?
2. Key Takeaways
3. How MiniMax AI Works
4. What is MiniMax Video?
5. Key Features of MiniMax AI
6. How to Use MiniMax AI
7. MiniMax AI vs. Kling AI
8. What are Some Effective Prompts to Use With MiniMax AI?
9. MiniMax AI Real-World Examples
10. MiniMax AI Advantages and Limitations
11. MiniMax AI Future
12. The Bottom Line
13. FAQs
14. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. What is MiniMax AI?
2. Key Takeaways
3. How MiniMax AI Works
Show Full Guide
4. What is MiniMax Video?
5. Key Features of MiniMax AI
6. How to Use MiniMax AI
7. MiniMax AI vs. Kling AI
8. What are Some Effective Prompts to Use With MiniMax AI?
9. MiniMax AI Real-World Examples
10. MiniMax AI Advantages and Limitations
11. MiniMax AI Future
12. The Bottom Line
13. FAQs
14. References

How MiniMax AI Works

Like GenAI solutions, MiniMax AI works by interpreting text or image ‘prompts’ supplied by an end user. The information in the prompt is then interpreted by the solution’s Large Language Model (LLM), which then generates a result in text, image, or audio form.

MiniMax was founded in 2021 counts Alibaba and Tencent amongst its lead investors. An Alibaba-led funding round in 2023 was reported to have valued the company at more than USD 2.5 billion. The company was amongst the first companies approved by Beijing in 2023 to offer large language models for public use in China.

What is MiniMax Video?

After selecting Video-01 from the company’s home page or the Hailuoai.com platform website, users type a prompt into the free text field at the top of the screen, which describes a video or scene they would like to create. The software then processes the description and generates a six-second video from it.

Key Features of MiniMax AI

MiniMax AI’s text-to-video product offers these key features:

How to Use MiniMax AI

MiniMax AI vs. Kling AI

The MiniMax AI video generator launch happened shortly after the public unveiling of Kling AI, a competing product from Hong Kong video tech company Kuaishou Technology.

So far, early reviews have found the two solutions to be close in terms of quality and capabilities. However, MinMax AI edges ahead in areas like understanding context and detailed character representations.

For contrast:

• Video-01 is better at narratives that center on people or characters, rendering, for example, small movements such as hand and finger gestures realistically.
• Kling AI is more effective at rendering natural settings, for example, realistic portrayals of the environment including forests, oceans, fields, mountains, and other landscapes.

What are Some Effective Prompts to Use With MiniMax AI?

City scene: Using a monochrome black-and-white Parisian urban street setting with people walking, cyclists driving, and cars in motion, add blur to moving objects and focus on a single building doorway in color. The door is green, it opens slowly.

Moving car: Build a medium close-up image of a glistening green car in a showroom, create a tracking shot following its slow forward movements on a reflective surface, and emphasize reflections of spotlights and neon lighting.

MiniMax AI Real-World Examples

Below are several examples of MiniMax AI:

MiniMax AI Advantages and Limitations

MiniMax AI Future

At the free text-to-video AI tool’s September launch event, MiniMax told the press that future updates to Video-01 will allow users to create videos of longer duration (expected to be around 10 seconds), edit the videos they generate, and create videos from images as well as text input.

The Bottom Line

MiniMax AI is the latest entrant in the text-to-video category, which by any definition, is AI’s current ‘space to watch.’ Initial reviews have found it to be highly effective for creating futuristic settings and interpreting hand and finger movements, which other AI video tools have not always been able to render accurately.

The company hopes to build on that breakthrough and improve the tool in areas like nuanced facial expression in future versions of the software.

FAQs