Tess.Design

Tess.Design ended in January 2026; March 9, 2026 is an inferred retrospective date because the actual cutoff day is unverified.

Image generation & editing · Closed · Jan 2026 · Closure announcement · 9 Mar 2026 · Evidence date, not an exact service cutoff · Kapwing Inc.

The record

A subscription AI image-generation and editing platform using participating artists’ licensed styles and sharing generation revenue with them.

Operator at shutdown: Kapwing Inc. Company source
Service end: Jan 2026Closure announcement · 9 Mar 2026 · Evidence date, not an exact service cutoffClosure source

Verification notes

Shutdown: The founder’s March9,2026 retrospective explicitly says Tess launched in May2024 and shut down in January2026. January is the independently supported actual service-end period; no exact cutoff day is known. The displayed March9 is an inferred dated permanent-closure retrospective marker, not a claim it operated until March. This was a separately subscribed image-generation/editor service with its own sign-in, not just an index of models or one artist style. Kapwing and its Custom Kais continue and are excluded. Claims about copyright safety or being first are vendor positions, not independent legal findings. First beta availability and cutoff time zone remain unverified. Closure source
Dates checked: Announced 9 Mar 2026 · Verified 25 Oct 2026
AI functionality: AI functionality source
Launch: The operator’s May2,2024 release is an out-of-beta milestone; the earlier beta’s first availability day is not established, so no first-launch day is asserted.
Location: United States · San Francisco. The operator’s self-issued release expressly identifies Kapwing Inc. as the product owner and a company based in San Francisco; this is more than the release dateline. It is the operator’s evidenced operating-city fallback, not an exact product office. GeoNames city coordinates are rounded to two decimals. Location source · Coordinate source