The AI photo app that briefly took China by storm is calling it quits. Miao Duck Camera (Miào Yā Xiàng Jī), an Alibaba-backed app once hailed as the country's first breakout consumer AIGC (AI-generated content) product, has reportedly disbanded its core team. The project is now running on a skeleton crew with no further updates or marketing support.
Launched in July 2023, Miao Duck Camera shot to the top of the App Store free charts in August that year by offering AI-generated digital avatars and glamorous portraits for just 9.9 yuan ($1.37). At its peak, it boasted over 600,000 daily active users. But less than three years later, the app has lost its technical edge and fallen victim to organizational turmoil.
Miao Duck Camera relied on "Titian," an in-house AI image model developed by Alibaba's digital entertainment arm (now renamed Killer Whale Entertainment). However, it didn't tap into Alibaba's flagship large language models like Tongyi Qianwen, missing out on shared AI resources. As competitors — from ByteDance's Douyin (TikTok's Chinese sister) to the veteran photo editor Meitu Xiuxiu — quickly rolled out free, feature-rich AI camera tools with capabilities like object removal and AI-powered image expansion, Miao Duck's single-function gimmick lost its appeal. By November 2023, product lead Zhang Yueguang had left to start his own venture, accelerating the app's decline.
The app's fate was also sealed by internal ecosystem conflicts and restructuring within the parent company. To avoid operational friction, management initially kept Miao Duck independent, preventing it from leveraging Alibaba's core entertainment assets like the video platform Youku. Then came a sweeping organizational overhaul at Alibaba, with Killer Whale Entertainment pivoting to full profit-and-loss autonomy. Investment in Miao Duck dried up. As the group's AI strategy zeroes in on e-commerce and cloud computing, consumer-facing AI gimmicks like Miao Duck Camera have become — in the words of one industry observer — "an isolated edge case."
In other words, the party's over for a fleeting viral sensation.