Midjourney acquires Co-Star, names founder Chief Design Officer
By Steven Van ·
Banu Guler will lead design, product and frontend across Midjourney while Co-Star keeps running under her control.
Midjourney made a move that says less about models and more about taste: it's acquiring Co-Star, the design-forward astrology app, and installing its CEO Banu Guler as Midjourney's Chief Design Officer. She'll build a cross-functional design, product, and frontend team across all of Midjourney's efforts, while the Co-Star app keeps operating under her complete control.
A design hire, not a tech acquisition
This is an acquihire aimed squarely at design leadership. Co-Star became a cultural phenomenon not because of astrology but because of how it looked and felt, a stark, confident, instantly recognizable aesthetic that made a horoscope app feel like an art object. Bringing the person behind that into a Chief Design Officer role signals where Midjourney thinks its next edge lies: not just in image quality, where it already leads, but in the product experience wrapped around it.
Why design is Midjourney's frontier
Midjourney has spent years as a model company with a famously spartan interface, powerful, but historically driven through Discord and dense parameter strings. As image generation commoditizes and rivals catch up on raw quality, the differentiator shifts to the product: how it feels to create, iterate, and organize work. A dedicated design, product, and frontend org led by someone with Co-Star's track record is Midjourney betting that experience, not just output, is what will keep it ahead.
Co-Star continues
Notably, Co-Star isn't being shut down or absorbed, Midjourney says it will keep operating under Guler's control. That's an unusual and creator-friendly structure: the acquired product survives while its founder takes on a bigger canvas. For Midjourney users, the tangible promise is a Midjourney that's easier and more delightful to use, shaped by someone who turned a utility into a cultural icon through design alone.
What to watch
Nothing changes in your Midjourney workflow today, this is an org and leadership move. But it's the kind of hire whose effects show up months later in the interface, the onboarding, and the overall feel of the product. If you've ever found Midjourney's power gated behind its UX, this is the signal that's on the roadmap to change.
Sources: Midjourney on X.