Freepik, the popular graphic design platform, has launched a new AI image model called F Lite. The model, unveiled on Tuesday, was trained exclusively on commercially licensed, safe-for-work images, addressing growing concerns over copyright issues in generative AI. Developed in partnership with AI startup Fal.ai, F Lite boasts 10 billion parameters and was trained using 64 Nvidia H100 GPUs over the course of two months.

Generative AI, which creates images and other media, has faced significant legal challenges due to the use of copyrighted data without permission. Many AI companies, including OpenAI and Midjourney, have argued that their use of such data falls under fair use. However, creators and intellectual property (IP) holders have often disagreed, leading to a wave of lawsuits. In this context, F Lite represents a significant step toward ethical AI, as it relies solely on licensed content, marking it as one of the few generative models with this approach.

How Is Freepik’s F Lite Revolutionizing AI Image Generation?

F Lite comes in two versions.

1. Standard
2. Texture

The Standard model is designed to be more predictable and consistent, providing results that closely match user prompts. In contrast, the Texture model is considered more error-prone, but offers better textures and more creative compositions. Both models were trained on an internal dataset of around 80 million images, ensuring high-quality outputs for a variety of use cases.

While Freepik has not claimed that F Lite surpasses industry leaders like Midjourney V7 or Flux from Black Forest Labs, the company emphasizes that the model is made available openly to encourage developers to tailor and improve it for specific applications. However, running F Lite requires advanced hardware, specifically a GPU with at least 24GB of VRAM.

Impact of Licensed AI Models in the Creative Industry

Several other companies, such as Adobe, Bria, Getty Images, Moonvalley, and Shutterstock, are also developing generative AI models that rely on licensed data. As AI copyright lawsuits continue to shape the future of generative models, F Lite could play a crucial role in setting new standards for licensed content use, paving the way for more responsible AI development in the industry.