“We are focused on the strategic and thriving demography of millennials”

“India is a very important market for us and we have seen tremendous growth in terms of usage and download even during the lockdown. With the easily accessible and easyto-use tools Picsart brings along, we think we can help equip India’s socially active m

The world of photo apps is a crowded place. With thousands of different photo-taking/editing/ sharing apps to choose from and more being launched every day, it is a surprise when any of them break off from the pack and gather a strong following. And one of the companies that have made a name for itself in the space is Picsart. It is already popular among millennials around the world who are looking to have fun creating and editing content beyond just applying filters. The app brand has redefined the basic concept of the photo and video editing by focusing on social editing experience. And while eyeing the growth in the Indian market the co-founder of Picsart, Hovhannes Avoyan, in a conversation with Pahi Mehra shared how important the Indian market is for the brand and exactly what changed due to the recent lockdown!

What is Picsart all about? What inspired you to start Picsart? Picsart is the world’s largest creative platform and social editing app powered by 150 million monthly active creators. every month, the Picsart community creates, remixes, and shares nearly 1 billion images and videos, making it the largest open-source collection of freeto-edit content in the world.

my daughter was the inspiration behind

Picsart. my, then 10 -old daughter wanted to express herself through her art and shared her artwork online and got bullied. That day I decided to build a safe space where anyone could share their artwork, photos, and images without getting judged while also giving an opportunity to collaborate in meaningful ways using built-in tools that would unleash their imagination. This is the idea behind Picsart – a supportive

environment where anyone can easily create and share their creations with the world.

How is Picsart different from any other online image gallery and aggregator platform? Picsart comes with a unique combination of creative tools (1,000s of options), content (billions of free-to-edit photos, stickers, replays), community (sharing free-toedit images, remixing, participating in

challenges) that creates a built-in network effect unrivaled in the market.

Unlike many platforms in the market, we are platform-agnostic, enabling users to share across any and all messaging and social media platforms. We also have AI and machine learning in place to stay ahead of the curve. by leveraging the most up-to-date and cutting-edge technology, such as Apple and Google’s Ar Kits, we are always advancing our use cases and growing.

You have recently launched the web version of Picsart globally. How do you think this announcement will help Picsart? This 2020 October we announced that more than two dozen of Picsart’s most popular editing and Ai-based tools will be now available for free and subscribed to Picsart.com. With this announcement, we made available tools like a template editor, background and object remover, video slideshow maker, text editor, filters, and an entire library of premium content, including stock photography, templates, fonts, and stickers, as well as millions of free-to-edit images submitted by Picsart’s community.

Picsart has been known to the world as an all-in-one photo and video editing app on mobile and it was natural to transition for us to move to the web and make our tools more accessible to our creators who have been using Picsart to create marketing materials for official purpose. As a brand that believes in giving everyone the opportunity to become a creator without having to go through the complex process, we also felt it was the right time to make our tools available to more people, especially, in the time of the pandemic so that people get to fight it in a creative way.

What’s Picsart planning for India in the future? India is a very important market for us and we have seen tremendous growth in terms of usage and download even during the lockdown. With the easily accessible and easy-to-use tools Picsart brings along, we think we can help equip India’s socially active millennials with limitless creativity without the need to get trained.

India has also seen many start-ups coming up it is a growing technology hub for the world. We were really happy to make the web tools available in time for our users during the festive season in India and going forward too we will be considering the Indian market for any important upgrades or announcements.

What makes Picsart stay relevant to its users? It is present in many countries around the world and every place has its own cultural identity and significance. How does Picsart stand out in these countries? Picsart is present in more than 175 countries including the Vatican & North Korea too. All thanks to the great team we have that is always on top of the latest user

trends and behavior in these countries. We are also heavily focused on releasing product features driven by country’s/region community’s wants and needs.

We are also one of the only platforms that consistently engages with our community. by adding new content and curating weekly photo challenges, we continually inspire and ignite creativity among our community and our fandoms.

When it comes to standing out in these countries we are focused on the strategic and thriving demography of millennials. We ensure that we offer the right services and tools to the people who want it and are using it the most actively thereby increasing our user loyalty, revenue, and value/visibility.

How has the usages and growth of Picsart been in India? during the recent lockdown period in India, we recorded an increase of 45% in monthly active users (MAU) in India alone and a 43% jump in app downloads. Not just this, we also found that the average time spent by users in India on the Picsart app increased by 53% post the announcement of quarantine.

What are your thoughts about Artificial Intelligence? Picsart is one of the most used mobile image editors in the world and has one of the largest creative communities. With more than 1b monthly edited images,

Picsart produces unique data about people’s image editing habits and patterns. Picsart collects up to 4 billion events per day which is an enormous amount of data from the images, the user actions, the business transactions. Picsart uses AI to bring this all together to improve the user experience. The metadata we collect is used to directly improve the user experience by responding to the way people use our app and then creating the tools they want. It is a virtuous circle: data helps to improve the product, a better product increases usage, increased usage generates more data making AI smarter.

According to you, how do AI and image recognition/analytics fit into modern businesses? many consider artificial intelligence (AI) the new electricity, as it can penetrate into all spheres of business and radically change them. companies

“Unlike many platforms in the market, we are platform-agnostic, enabling users to share across any and all messaging and social media platforms”

that are best at utilizing AI will have an advantage over their competitors by providing superior services at a much lower cost. AI provides both incremental and disruptive opportunities to new and existing businesses. moreover, it is not just a technology but a new paradigm for making systems and products more robust and efficient.

Some of the biggest social network platforms we see today are also relying on AI as a critical component to grow further. Without the data and analytics, these companies would not be have been able to reach the phenomenal levels of success they have now. The data they have also made these companies sustainable, and their positions more defensible against the competition. While anyone can copy features, in order to become the next Facebook, businesses need to have a network of scale and data.

Where do you see Ai/machine Learning and othersmarttechnologiesheadinginthecoming years?

Over the last few years, we have seen many organizations are experimenting and even deploying new smart technologies like Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ml) to solve business challenges. Once an organization starts using AI and ml technology in their businesses, they start learning new things and gain new knowledge about their business helping them to adapt to evolving needs.

With ml and AI, we are becoming more efficient in our ability to predict the future and detect behavioral change more accurately. The ongoing pandemic has also taught many businesses the need to take the digital leap if they have survived to something like it again. The growing accessibility of AI and ml will bring disruption across industries. It will also help businesses that are trying to innovate and disrupt their industry. even for Picsart, AI is not just one of its technologies but the future of the company. As the world’s largest creative platform we are constantly building the infrastructure, neural network models, and applications for big data in hopes to be the leader in creative expression.

Is there any new feature/tool coming up soon for your users in India? We have recently launched the web tools globally while keeping in mind the festive season in India so that our users in India can have access to our tools more for their creative needs.

We will be bringing more features in video editing and premium video editing soon. ■