At SXSW in Austin, Texas this year, one of the hot topics of discussion was the rise of AI. This saw a raft of AI companies descend on the conference but one of the most interesting ones was the photo and video editing app, Prequel.
While in Texas, Mediaweek sat down with the company’s CEO and Founder Timur Khabirov.
Prequel offers a range of editing tools for its users and is built with AI technology. It offers users the ability to turn their personal photo and video content into scenes and montages that look like they’ve been created by professionals, in a simple fashion.
Timur Khabirov
The company was started with a private investment of $3 million dollars, and is now independently operating and generating a healthy profit margin. With a user base largely made up of female Gen Zs, the company also uses a subscription model – which according to Khabirov, is the best way to make the company profitable.
“Five years ago we started in the early stages to work with AI”, said Khabirov. “In those days it was not that easy. Prequel is not just photo and video editing, it’s an augmentation of the user’s content. If you took something with your camera, like a photo or video, the content by itself is naked. It requires something on top.
“We help people to promote the mood, their message. We started with high-level technologies, like AI, and voice recognition. At the same time, we started with visual effects with all of this. I said two years ago, we need to switch to AI – 80%, at least in 2023. AI is just a new tool, it’s a time saver, it’s a money saver for the creative community. It’s just the beginning.”
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Credit: Instagram – Photo of Katy Perry edited by Prequel
Khabirov said that from his experience working in the tech sector, he foresaw the rise of AI, but at the same time is surprised at how fast it has come.
“The industry started with static content, now we’re working on video, and the third step is Metaverse, a 360-degree environment. People need it. It’s fast. You can generate many pictures, many pictures in a minute.”
“A lot of celebrities and huge brands already use us, like Gucci. They don’t need a desktop or laptop. They can use a cell phone to create something beautiful – they use Prequel on an iPhone to make some beautiful advertisements.”
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Credit: Instagram – Paris Hilton photo, using Prequel.
Fashion
While meeting with Khabirov, he showed Mediaweek the new fashion function which allowed the user to take one photo and generate several different looks.
Khabirov said that from one original picture, you can change workflows, the environment around you, and your style.
“You can play with it. Your style, change environment, you can say ‘I would like to have a picture in Paris, or Oslo, or London, or Fiji’. You can play with this, and in a lot of these cases actually, it is both a b2b or b2c business model.”
Video
Prequel also offers video editing with tips to help users, as well as intros, outros, and background music. Khabirov said that this is just the beginning.
“Later on – this is a small spoiler! – we will be able to provide different styles for your video content. Everyone is an artist inside, but with no experience if you are not a professional in the movie industry or in the TV industry. At the same time, you can make something beautiful. It is like karaoke, you can’t perform in any way, but would like to do this. Karaoke was a revolution in the consumer market and it is the same here. We can write the script for your scenario, and the audio and video content as well by your request, and you can have this short movie.”
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You can download Prequel on all app stores and can read more about the company here.