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Lightricks, the Israeli-based company widely recognized for its popular photo-editing app Facetune, is embarking on a bold initiative to transform the generative AI landscape. Today, the company unveiled LTX Video (LTXV), an innovative open-source AI model that can create five seconds of high-quality video in just four seconds. This strategic move directly challenges the increasing prevalence of proprietary AI systems developed by leading tech giants, including OpenAI, Adobe, and Google.
“We believe foundational models are going to be a commodity, and you can’t build an actual business around foundational models,” asserted Zeev Farbman, Co-founder and CEO of Lightricks, during an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. Farbman emphasized that, “If startups want to have a serious chance to compete, the technology needs to be open, and you want to make sure that people in the top universities across the world have access to your model and add capabilities on top of it.”
With its innovative real-time processing and compact architecture, LTXV is designed to run efficiently even on consumer-grade hardware, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for users. This breakthrough positions Lightricks as a powerhouse in the generative video industry, potentially shaking up the established status quo.
How Lightricks weaponizes open source to challenge AI giants
Lightricks’ strategy to launch LTXV as open source is a calculated move essential for distinguishing the company amid the rapidly evolving generative AI market. The comprehensive model features two billion parameters and is engineered to operate proficiently on widely accessible GPUs, like the NVIDIA RTX 4090, while ensuring high visual fidelity and maintaining motion consistency.
This pivotal release comes as many AI systems—including OpenAI’s DALL-E and Google’s Imagen—are locked behind costly APIs, limiting access for developers. In contrast, Lightricks is banking on the concept that openness will stimulate innovation and broaden adoption.
Lightning-fast AI video: Breaking speed records on consumer hardware
LTXV’s exceptional speed distinguishes it from competitors. Capable of generating five seconds of video—121 frames at 768×512 resolution—in merely four seconds on NVIDIA’s H100 GPUs, the model exhibits remarkable near-real-time performance on consumer-grade hardware. Consequently, LTXV emerges as one of the fastest models available today.
Furthermore, this speed is achieved without sacrificing any quality; the model’s Diffusion Transformer architecture ensures smooth motion alongside structural integrity across frames, addressing critical limitations identified in previous video-generation technologies. This capability is transformative for smaller studios, independent creators, and researchers who require rapid iterations for high-quality results using affordable hardware.
“When you’re waiting a couple of minutes to get a result, it’s a terrible user experience,” Farbman noted. He added that accelerated feedback enables users to experiment and iterate swiftly, allowing them to explore the system’s capabilities fully, unlocking their creative potential.
Moreover, Lightricks designed LTXV to facilitate the production of longer videos, providing creators with enhanced flexibility and control. This newfound scalability and rapid processing abilities broaden the horizons for various industries ranging from gaming to e-commerce.
For instance, within gaming, LTXV could vastly upgrade the graphics of older games, transforming them into visually stunning experiences. Meanwhile, e-commerce businesses could leverage the model’s capabilities to generate thousands of advertisement variations for targeted A/B testing efficiently.
“Imagine casting an actor—real or virtual—and tweaking the visuals in real time to find the best creative for a specific audience,” Farbman expressed.
From photo app to AI powerhouse: Lightricks’ bold market play
With the introduction of LTXV, Lightricks is uniquely positioning itself as a disruptive force in an industry increasingly overtaken by a few dominant tech giants. This ambitious strategy marks a significant evolution for a company that began its journey primarily as a mobile app developer, gaining international acclaim for Facetune, a consumer photo-editing application.
With aspirations for expansion, Lightricks has broadened its portfolio by acquiring the Chicago-based influencer marketing platform Popular Pays and launching LTX Studio, an AI-driven storytelling platform aimed at professional creators. The integration of LTXV into LTX Studio is anticipated to enhance its functionalities, enabling users to create longer and more dynamic videos with unmatched speed and accuracy.
However, Lightricks finds itself grappling with immense competition. Going head-to-head with industry titans such as Adobe and Autodesk, which possess ample resources and entrenched user bases, poses a significant challenge. Adobe, for instance, has already assimilated generative AI into its leading Creative Cloud suite, which gives it a notable advantage among professional users.
Farbman acknowledges the challenges but insists that open-source innovation is paramount for smaller enterprises. “If you want to have a fighting chance as a startup versus the giants, you need to ensure the technology is open and adopted by academia and the broader community,” he explained.
Why open source could win the AI video generation race
Lightricks’ unveiling of LTXV accentuates an escalating dichotomy within the AI industry between open-source and proprietary methodologies. While proprietary models grant companies enhanced control and monetization prospects, they may alienate developers and researchers deprived of access to state-of-the-art tools.
“Part of what’s going on at the moment is that diffusion models are becoming an alternative paradigm to classical ways of doing things in computer graphics,” Farbman elaborated. “If you actually want to build alternatives, APIs are definitely not enough. You need to give people—academia, industry, enthusiasts—models to tinker with and create amazing new ideas.”
Lightricks intends to release LTXV on both GitHub and Hugging Face, beginning with an initial “community preview” phase for testing and feedback. Ultimately, the model will be published under an OpenRAIL license, which guarantees that derivatives remain available for academic and commercial application.
For Lightricks, the stakes are considerably high. The organization is not only wagering on the success of LTXV but also on the overarching acceptance of open AI models in a domain increasingly favoring closed systems.
“The future of open models is bright,” Farbman stated optimistically.
Whether this ambitious vision will materialize is yet to be determined. However, by releasing its most advanced technology at no cost, Lightricks is clearly illustrating that in the race to shape the future of AI video, collaboration and openness may emerge as the key competitive advantages.