The "Bring Your Own Keys" Business Model

Have you seen the AI tool ArtCraft?

ArtCraft offers a free open source desktop app that allows you to create AI-generated videos.

So how do they make money?

Are they trying to compete with the big AI giants?

No, on the contrary, their software comes out of the box ready to connect to most of the other big AI providers.

That gives the consumer a choice:

If you are technology savvy and have a subscription to one of the big AI model providers, you can use ArtCraft for free and just point it at your existing providers.

If you are a non-technical person and don’t have a preference for what AI provider does the heavy lifting under the hood, you can just pay ArtCraft to be the provider.

It’s likely ArtCraft’s backend is just a wrapper for the big providers under the hood, but who cares as long as the product you are paying for is what you wanted.

ArtCraft has already gone through the trouble of creating the user interface(the desktop app), and as we all know, the cost of writing software is quickly decreasing, so instead of trying to make money on that, they adapted.

They give that away for free, and it acts like promotional material for what you are really selling: Tokens for an AI model.

It's similar to the hand-held razor market, where they give away the hand-held part at a loss and hope you continue to buy the razors that are compatible with it.

Except that since it's a digital good, the cost of giving away is the same if they give away one copy or one million.

And instead of forcing the consumer to buy razors that are compatible with your base, you let them use whatever knowing that by default, a good chunk of them will buy your razors because it's easier.

In an age where “AI” is disrupting so many business models, I love to see new models evolving.

What other innovative business models do you see evolving in this modern age?