Hooglee instead of Google: Eric Schmidt launches new AI project that should become a competitor to the social network TikTok

The former head of Google Eric Schmidt started a new initiative in the world of artificial intelligence — a startup called Hooglee. This project has an ambitious goal — change the AI ​​video generation market and compete with giants like TikTok.

Hooglee, backed by the Schmidt family office Hillspire, aims to “democratize video creation with AI”. While the company’s official website is still limited to a single page, sources say the project has brought together AI experts, including Google X co-founder Sebastian Thrun and researchers from Meta.

According to business documents, Hooglee has been joined by the team of Bichen Wu, who previously founded a startup that developed text-based video generators. In October last year, Wu joined forces with Schmidt’s new project.

Hooglee is expected to be a hybrid of AI video generation software and a social network. Some employees are already calling the startup an alternative to TikTok. At the same time, experts note that the details of the project remain a secret for now, and the way in which Hooglee plans to compete with popular platforms is unknown.

This startup is the first AI project that Schmidt personally oversees after investing in Anthropic and SandboxAQ. In addition, Hooglee is competing in a market where giants such as Runway, OpenAI, ByteDance, as well as Meta, Google and Adobe, which are developing their own AI solutions, are already operating.

Schmidt has repeatedly spoken about the potential of artificial intelligence, and also warned about its risks, including the problem of deepfakes. During a roundtable discussion in March, he said: “Nobody cares about the text, but the video can incite violence”. Whether Hooglee will address these risks in its product — is still unknown.