Midjourney June 2026 Update: Scanner, Bigger Batches, V8.2 Preview & More
June was a big month for Midjourney! Here's a rundown of everything that was announced.
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Midjourney Scanner & Midjourney Medical
Midjourney's first secret hardware project has been revealed, and it's not what anyone expected: a full-body ultrasound machine called the Midjourney Scanner.
Here's how it works. You step onto a platform that lowers you into a pool of water. A ring of sensors surrounds you, sending and receiving ultrasonic sound waves from every angle. That data generates a high-resolution 3D map of your insides. The goal is for the whole process to take about 60 seconds, with no radiation and no powerful magnetic field involved.
According to Midjourney, it should be roughly 10 times cheaper and 60 times faster than MRI. Right now it's a prototype, and NO AI is involved in creating the images. The first use case will be body composition mapping as a wellness tool, not diagnostics, though they are working with the FDA as the technology develops.
The first public rollout will be through the Midjourney Spa, a 25,000 square foot space near Union Square in San Francisco, targeting an end of 2027 opening. Longer term, the goal is 50,000 scanners globally by 2031.
A few important things to note: Midjourney is not pivoting away from image generation. This is a completely separate team under a new division called Midjourney Medical. And because Midjourney has no investors and is entirely community-funded, they have the freedom to put resources into ambitious projects like this one.
You can learn more and read their blog posts at midjourney.com/medical.
Bigger Batches in Draft Mode
Draft mode in V8.1 now gives you 24 images at once!
If you're not familiar, draft mode is a lower resolution, lower cost mode great for quick exploration. You activate it by clicking the lightning bolt on the right side of the prompt bar. Each draft mode job costs half as much as a standard SD job in 8.1, even with 24 images. It runs in both Fast and Relax mode.
When you get a result that you like and want higher quality, click Vary Subtle on that image and it will render at whatever resolution you have set as your default.
Draft Mode + SREF Random
Another fun Draft Mode update! Now when you use --sref random in draft mode, each of the 24 images will get a different random SREF code. That means 24 completely different styles in a single job, which is a great way to quickly explore Midjourney's style universe.
--preview: An Early Look at V8.2
There's a new --preview parameter you can add to your V8.1 prompts.
This gives you an early look at V8.2, which is still in development. The results so far have been well-received, especially for personalization and moodboard results. A few known issues include occasional unwanted gore and some coherence inconsistencies, which the team is working on.
V8.2 is primarily an aesthetics update. The bigger improvements to prompt adherence and body coherence are expected to come with V9. Try it out and share feedback in the ideas-and-features channel on Midjourney's Discord.
Editor and OREF
Still in active development. The plan is for incremental releases, with an OREF-like feature expected first, followed by inpainting and multiple reference capability so you can combine scenes with characters and objects more seamlessly.
In the meantime, if you drop an image into the OREF box while V8.1 is your default, the job will automatically run using V7.
V9 and Niji 8
Early V9 training runs have started. V9 is being framed as a scaled-up continuation of V8 with a bigger model and bigger dataset rather than a dramatic architecture change. Early Niji 8 training runs are also underway.
A Few Other Updates
V8.1 became the default model in June. You can still switch back to V7 in your settings or by adding --v 7 to your prompts.
The --tile parameter has a known issue in 8.1 that produces faint borders on image edges, breaking seamless patterns. The team may try to address it in 8.2, but for now V7 is the better option for tile prompts.
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