Higgsfield

Along with passing off stock videos as AI, Higgsfield has offered to pay creators to share clips created with its own AI tools that are offensive and unsavory. According to screenshots viewed by Forbes and three sources who were approached by the startup, multiple creators received Google Drive folders from Higgsfield filled with racist and obscene videos featuring popular children’s characters like Shrek, Moana and Mickey Mouse, and nonconsensual deepfakes of public figures like Sydney Sweeney, Zendaya and President Trump.

The $1.3 billion-valued startup, whose tools are used by some 15 million creators and ad agencies to churn out 4.5 million video clips every day, was about to launch a new tool called Vibe Motion, which uses AI models to convert text prompts into motion graphics. The offer: If Soret shared the startup’s social media post along with a video clip from pre-assembled marketing materials, the company would pay him $200.

The firm has also peddled steep discounts for “unlimited” plans, only to later limit what people are able to generate, two users told Forbes. In one Black Friday promotion, the firm ran a 65% discount and promised unlimited access to powerful and expensive models like Google’s Nano Banana for just $25 a month (rivals like Runway charge $76 a month for similar access). The sale was a hit, attracting hundreds of creators who signed up for unlimited use.

Earlier this year, Higgsfield launched a program called Higgsfield Earn, which allows users to get paid for creating viral content using its tools and tagging or mentioning the company. The more shares or likes a post gets, the more a creator can earn. In the first 20 days of the program, the startup commissioned 10,000 creators who submitted 50,000 videos. It was supposed to be a win-win situation: creators make money and word spreads about Higgsfield.

That rapid growth appears to be driven by aggressive, and sometimes misleading, marketing tactics, according to nine sources and a review of documents, screenshots and social media posts. And scaling fast has led to serious mistakes.

Influencer marketing has helped AI video company Higgsfield hit $300 million in annual run rate in just eleven months. But misleading marketing tactics and a social media strategy based on shock has led to backlash among creators.

The company created two feature-length AI films, “Hell Grind” and “The Cully Hill Boys,” which featured the likenesses of two-time UFC champion Israel Adesanya, MMA veteran Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and livestream creator N3on, to give two stark examples to users attempting to make AI films of their own. The former is a sci-fi adventure film filled with visual effects, and the latter is a comedic action movie using real celebrities’ likenesses.

Of course, it’s still an AI slop engine as well. Last month, Higgsfield was used to create a video called “Island Holiday” that depicted people mentioned in the Epstein files alongside fictional characters on “vacation” on Epstein’s island. (Because of its offensive nature, we’re not going to link to the viral X post.)