Reface: Reimagining the selfie with Google Cloud
Reface uses Google Kubernetes Engine to develop and scale its face-swapping app as it grows in popularity.
Google Cloud results
- Builds powerful machine learning models with Google Kubernetes Engine
- Scales up and down cost effectively with Google Kubernetes Engine
- Enables Reface to evolve from an app to a social network
Scaling to make 130 million downloads with Google Cloud
We live in the age of the selfie. It’s one of the biggest cultural phenomena of the 21st century. We can show friends and family where we are, and how we’re feeling with one simple autobiographical photo. And now the selfie is evolving. Filters and editing tools let us discover a new sense of fun and creativity with our self-portraits.
One start-up asked a simple question: ‘What if you could swap your face onto anything, from a famous movie star to the Mona Lisa?’ That start-up is Reface. Its initial app was an instant success, making headlines around the world, even catching the eye of Elon Musk. Reface has since gone on to achieve over 130 million downloads and scored the number one spot on the Google Play chart.
But, as with many successful start-ups, the initial phase of turning a simple, saleable idea into something more required a lot of hard work, agile thinking, and improvisation. Google Cloud has been a part of Reface since its early days, its founders say that the platform offers ease of use and a constantly evolving suite of products.
“We chose Google Cloud because it was easy to understand,” says Maksym Piddubnyi, Head of IT at Reface. “And, it was evolving much faster than other cloud providers. Google Cloud could match the speed at which we were working, and it evolves faster and faster each day. We were also attracted by the ethical business approach of Google, as well as the range of services Google Cloud has to offer, such as Google Kubernetes Engine and Pub/Sub, which was one of the first tools we started to work with.”
Changing the face of selfies with Google Cloud
Originally dubbed Doublicat, a play on the word duplicate, Reface was created by a group of Ukrainian friends who were experimenting with machine learning and artificial intelligence. Their initial efforts resulted in Reface. This allowed users to swap their faces with everyone from movie stars to celebrities to sportspeople and to create their own shareable gifs, a technology known as ‘synthetic media.’ The success of the app saw Doublicat grow from a handful of enthusiasts to become Reface, which currently has a 260-strong team. But Maksym Piddubnyi says that the spirit of adventure that led to its creation, as well as its culture of coding, has been maintained to this day.
As a young start-up, the Reface team were working fast, constantly creating and testing new iterations of their app. The company has been using on-premise infrastructure for some of its tasks, but launching the app to a global audience required scalable cloud infrastructure that could deliver results from Day 1. Having started using Google Cloud and seeing the first results, they worked together with Terasky, a Google Cloud Partner, to help with their growing cloud-based infrastructure.
“Terasky is a great partner,” says Piddubnyi. “The whole team helped us a great deal. We have a lot in common and they’re on the same page as us, which makes communicating with them really easy. It’s always been great to work with them, and lean on their expertise to overcome any of the challenges we faced, particularly early on.”
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