Generative video
How to use
Pika.
Creating short social videos from text, images, or footage; directing transitions with Pikaframes; and experimenting with Pika's visual effects and AI Selves.
Pika is a AI video creation and visual-agent platform. Creating short social videos from text, images, or footage; directing transitions with Pikaframes; and experimenting with Pika's visual effects and AI Selves. This guide covers the whole path in one place: official access, a first session that produces something reviewable, the checks that make output trustworthy, and the permissions worth limiting before you connect real work.
AI should make the work easier to inspect. If the workflow removes the source, the owner, or the review step, redesign the workflow.
Access & setup
Find, install, and sign in to Pika
Get into the official Pika experience with the right account and a setup you understand.
- 01
Start at https://pika.art/ and confirm the domain before entering account or payment information.
- 02
Availability: Official web and mobile experiences for AI video creation, with experimental agent and real-time visual products offered separately.
- 03
A Pika account, supported browser or mobile device, and sufficient credits for the selected model, feature, duration, and resolution.
- 04
Sign in with the account you intend to keep using, then review plan, data, notification, and permission settings.
- 05
Run one low-risk test task before connecting sensitive files, repositories, or workspace data.
- Use official download pages.
- Review permissions during setup.
- Keep installers and applications updated.
First session
Your first useful Pika session
Learn the interaction loop using a small task with a clear outcome.
- 01
Define one short clip with a target channel, aspect ratio, duration, visual action, and source-rights check.
- 02
Choose the input mode and Pika feature that provides the narrowest required control.
- 03
Generate low-cost tests, then refine motion, camera, and continuity one variable at a time.
- 04
Review every frame, identity treatment, audio, and commercial-use requirements before publishing.
- State the outcome before the background.
- Provide the real source material.
- Review the result before expanding the task.
Quality control
Check the quality of Pika output
Turn a promising generation into an asset you can legally and safely ship.
- 01
Restate the brief, the deliverable format, and where the asset will appear before judging any output.
- 02
Inspect at full resolution: generated media hides its errors at thumbnail size.
- 03
Check the details these systems reliably get wrong — hands, text, logos, reflections, symmetry, and edge artefacts.
- 04
Confirm the licence and commercial-use terms for your plan, and check the output does not reproduce a recognisable style, mark, or likeness you have no right to use.
- 05
Review for accessibility and delivery: alt text, contrast, colour profile, file size, and the exact export format.
- Inspect at full resolution before approving anything.
- Confirm commercial-use rights before an asset reaches a client.
- Keep the prompt and settings with the asset so it can be reproduced.
Privacy & permissions
Use Pika safely
Use the platform without surrendering rights, likenesses, or client material you do not control.
- 01
Confirm you hold the rights to every reference image, voice, or clip before uploading it.
- 02
Check whether your plan trains on submitted content, and opt out before uploading client work.
- 03
Never upload a real person's likeness or voice without their explicit, documented consent.
- 04
Review the output for marks, styles, or likenesses you have no licence to reproduce.
- 05
Label synthetic media where your client, platform, or jurisdiction requires disclosure.
- Pika features and pricing change quickly, and generated video can distort people, objects, text, and physics. Use consented inputs, monitor credit cost, and inspect every frame before release.
- Follow your organisation's approved-use policy.
- Never treat fluent output as authorization to act.
Core workflows
Step-by-step ways to use Pika for the work it does best.
Each workflow is a separate guide with its own steps and review checkpoints.
Official references
Check the current product documentation.
Features, plan limits, availability, and data controls change. These official pages are the starting points used for this guide.