Midjourney Acquires Astrology App Co-Star and Appoints CEO Banu Guler as Chief Design Officer
Midjourney has acquired the astrology app Co-Star and appointed its CEO Banu Guler as Chief Design Officer.
Banu Guler will form a cross-functional design, product, and front-end team, while Co-Star will continue to operate independently.
The buyer values consumer AI product experience and design capabilities, while selling pressure comes from the old expectation of viewing Midjourney solely as an image generation tool; this acquisition represents an expansion of product capabilities, benefiting Midjourney's application path while putting pressure on a single-function narrative.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Co-Star is not just a pure astrology toy; public information shows it combines AI with human writing, targeting high-frequency consumption scenarios for a long time, and has millions of monthly active users. The most important assets for such products are retention and interface stickiness.
This time, Midjourney is not simply buying users but acquiring consumer product experience: Banu Guler has a background in design and product, and will directly oversee design, product, and front-end after joining, indicating the company is completing the last mile from model to application.
Historically, AI companies transitioning from "capable of generating content" to "capable of supporting daily use" usually need to first complete a product-level reconstruction; this acquisition seems to signal Midjourney's transformation from a model brand to an application platform.
Structurally, this is a typical industrial chain reconstruction: upstream model capabilities are beginning to extend to downstream application organization, design systems, and user experience. Those who can integrate aesthetics, functionality, and retention are more likely to secure the next round of consumer AI entry points.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Models generate results, products determine retention.
True competition lies not in functionality, but in experience organization.
In the second half of AI, the competition is about application entry points.