Krea AI releases Krea 2, its first image foundation model designed from scratch.

Krea AI launches Krea 2, its first proprietary image foundation model featuring style referencing and Moodboards to challenge Midjourney's aesthetics.

Krea 2 is the first image foundation model trained by Krea AI without relying on a pre-existing architecture. The team designed it around three core principles: aesthetics, stylistic diversity, and creative control, with the idea of treating AI as a modular medium rather than a generator producing standardized outputs.

The tool integrates a style referencing system developed with as much investment as the model itself. Users upload one to four images, whose visual components are extracted and then applied to the generated image. A slider allows users to adjust the intensity of this influence and combine multiple styles. The Moodboards feature goes further by analyzing the underlying ideas, concepts, and themes within a set of images, allowing for the creation of composite atmospheres like Cyber Zine or Minimalist Ink.

When faced with a vague prompt, the model adopts an exploratory approach, suggesting new directions rather than a single result. A dedicated parameter controls the variation within a single batch, from consistent rendering to broad stylistic dispersion. Generation time is under 15 seconds.

On 𝕏, initial feedback converges on one point: Krea 2 produces images that are more grounded and less polished than dominant models. Some describe scenes that carry “weight, air, texture”, far from polished CGI. Others place the model on par with Midjourney for aesthetics, with a clear speed advantage. Light management and compositional balance are regularly cited as strong points. However, a reservation consistently comes up among several testers: with Moodboards, composition still requires precise prompts to remain legible. From LHC's perspective, judgment remains pending. The model handles prompts well and, depending on the compositions, delivers sometimes astonishing outputs in terms of artistic direction. It's a credible alternative to Midjourney. Some hallucinations persist, with glitches in the details. For a first version, the material is rich enough to iterate, test, and fuel genuine research work.

Access is open to Max and Business subscribers, with a progressive distribution of early access codes throughout the week. Krea positions this release as the first building block of a research laboratory dedicated to creative tools.