Press Kit
Everything journalists, podcasters, and researchers need to write about ZSky AI. If you need anything not listed here, just ask — we'll get it to you within 24 hours.
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Founder website: cemhanbiricik.com
The 30-second pitch
ZSky AI is a free AI image and video generator built by a photographer with aphantasia who healed from a traumatic brain injury through creative work. It runs on 7 NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPUs the founder owns personally, in his United States workstation. The free tier is permanent: 200 credits at signup, 100 every day, 1080p video with synchronized audio in 30 seconds, no watermark, no signup required. ZSky has 26,000+ users gained in 4 months without paid advertising. Paid tiers start at $9/month.
Why this is a story
- Aphantasia + AI is a documented research frontier. Cemhan cannot picture images in his mind. He built the visual tool he needed. There are an estimated 12-40 million people with aphantasia worldwide and they have almost no media coverage.
- TBI recovery through creative work is a published neuroplasticity finding. The act of composing photographs literally rebuilt Cemhan's neural pathways after a traumatic brain injury that took his words for almost a year. The camera was his therapy.
- Self-hosted independent AI is a 2026 trend story. Sora shut down April 26 2026. Grok paywalled its free tier in March 2026. Runway killed free video in late 2025. ZSky is one of the only AI image+video tools where the founder personally owns the GPUs the inference runs on.
- Mission-driven free-forever AI is the anti-slop counter-narrative. Merriam-Webster named "slop" the 2025 word of the year. Marvel and Comic-Con banned AI submissions. ZSky's pitch is "made BY humans, with AI as the brush, never the author."
- Built without VC. Bootstrapped, founder-owned, no investors, no exit pressure, no algorithmic optimization for retention metrics. The free tier is generous because the founder believes creativity is a right, not a luxury.
Founder bio (long)
Cemhan Biricik is an American photographer and the founder of ZSky AI. He has aphantasia — the inability to voluntarily form mental images — and survived a traumatic brain injury that took his words for almost a year. Photography rebuilt the neural pathways the injury had broken, an example of neuroplasticity through creative work. The camera was the first tool that let him externalize his ideas, because as someone with aphantasia he could not picture them in his mind first.
When AI image generation matured, Cemhan recognized it as the most important accessibility tool of the decade for people who cannot visualize. He bought 7 NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPUs and built ZSky AI in his workstation in the United States — a free image and video generator with 1080p output, synchronized audio, no watermark, and no signup required. Within four months it reached 26,000 users without any paid advertising.
Cemhan's mission is straightforward: "Everyone has the right to create beauty. From cave walls to pencils to cameras to AI — the same voice of creativity, in a new medium. I built ZSky so nobody else would have to pay $20 a month to make something they imagined."
Founder bio (one-line)
Cemhan Biricik is the founder of ZSky AI. He is an American photographer with aphantasia who healed from a traumatic brain injury through creative work, and built ZSky on 7 NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPUs he owns personally because he believes creativity is a right, not a luxury.
Quotes from Cemhan (ready to use)
Stats
Quick facts
| Company | ZSky AI |
| Founder | Cemhan Biricik |
| Founded | 2025 |
| Headquarters | United States (self-hosted on owned hardware) |
| Funding | Bootstrapped, no outside capital |
| Free tier | 200 credits at signup + 100 daily, no watermark, no signup required, full commercial use |
| Paid tiers | Supporter (Skip the Line) $9/mo · Pro $19/mo · Ultra $49/mo · Max $99/mo |
| Infrastructure | 7x NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPUs (224 GB VRAM total), 32-core/64-thread CPU, privately owned in the United States |
| Languages supported | 18 (English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Japanese, Arabic, Turkish, Korean, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Kazakh, Nepali, Czech) |
| Audio in video | Yes — synchronized audio included on every video, free tier and up |
| Watermark | None — on any tier, including free |
| Commercial use | Allowed on all plans including free |
| Failed generation policy | Automatically refunded |
Story angles we love
- "AI as accessibility." What aphantasia, TBI, and visual cortex damage have in common, and why generative AI is the most underreported accessibility breakthrough of the decade.
- "The Sora refugee story." What happens to free AI users when VC subsidies run out, and which tools survive.
- "Made by humans, with AI." The anti-slop counter-narrative — how to use AI without becoming the thing creators are protesting.
- "Owned hardware, not rented cloud." The economics of self-hosted AI in 2026 and why bootstrapped indie builders are outlasting VC-backed peers.
- "The 1 Million Minds Eye Initiative." Free lifetime access for people with aphantasia, TBI, and visual cortex damage. A parallel to ElevenLabs' 1 Million Voices.
- "Why South Asia is 80% of signups." The global creator economy isn't where Silicon Valley thinks it is.
Helpful URLs
- Homepage: zsky.ai
- Mission: zsky.ai/mission.html
- Manifesto: zsky.ai/human-made-with-ai.html
- 1 Million Minds Eye: zsky.ai/one-million-minds-eye.html
- Sora Refugee Program: zsky.ai/sora-refugee.html
- Made in USA: zsky.ai/made-in-usa-ai.html
- Pricing: zsky.ai/pricing.html
- Compare hub: zsky.ai/compare/
- Founder website: cemhanbiricik.com
Logos & brand assets
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