Kimi
: How to use it, features, and the business problems it solves
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What is Kimi?
Kimi is an AI chat and agent service from Beijing-based Moonshot AI. Its open-weights flagship model Kimi K3 handles a 1M-token context with image and video input, and can take on slide creation, Deep Research, and coding. Chat is free, paid plans start at $19/month, and the API is priced in USD. The UI is mainly English/Chinese, but Japanese input and output work.
Business problems it solves
About "Kimi"
What is Kimi?
Kimi is an AI chat and agent service developed by Moonshot AI (Beijing Moonshot Technology Co., Ltd.), based in Beijing, China. It goes beyond Q&A chat: it can build slides, documents, and spreadsheets, run Deep Research investigations, and hand off coding work to the Kimi Code agent — an "agentic" product designed to complete work tasks end to end.
The flagship model, Kimi K3 (released July 16, 2026), is a Mixture-of-Experts model with 2.8 trillion total parameters and 104B active parameters, supporting a context window of roughly 1 million tokens (1,048,576) and native text, image, and video input. Moonshot follows an open-weights strategy, publishing model weights on Hugging Face; the previous generation, Kimi K2 (Modified MIT License), was widely adopted by the global developer community. K3 is released under the MIT-based "Kimi K3 License," which adds conditions for large-scale commercial use (such as a separate agreement for model-as-a-service businesses exceeding $20M in revenue over 12 months, and "Kimi K3" attribution requirements).
There are two main ways to use it: the consumer web/mobile app (kimi.com; international help pages at www.kimi.ai) and the developer API platform (platform.kimi.ai; platform.moonshot.cn for China).
How to use
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Create an account
On the international version you can sign up with a Google account or an email verification code (no credit card required). The China version (Chinese UI) uses phone number or WeChat login.
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Ask questions in chat
Type into the main input box ("Ask anything, or task an agent..."). Regular chat is free, and chatting with K2.6 consumes no credits.
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Delegate tasks to the agent
From the same input box, request deliverables such as research (Deep Research), presentations (Slides), documents (Docs), spreadsheets (Sheets), and websites (Websites).
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Set up scheduled and parallel runs
Use Scheduled Tasks for recurring runs, or Agent Swarm to execute multiple subtasks in parallel (paid plans).
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Developers: issue an API key
Issue an API key at platform.kimi.ai and call kimi-k3 and other models via OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible endpoints.
Key features
01Chat and research
- Chat — Regular chat with K2.6 is free with no credit consumption. K3 supports very long conversations (higher plans)
- Deep Research — Researches across the web and produces cited reports
- Multimodal input — K3 natively accepts images and video in addition to text
02Create
- Slides — Generates presentation decks from instructions
- Docs / Sheets / Websites / Design — Generates and edits documents, spreadsheets, websites, and designs
- Kimi Code — A coding agent and CLI tool powered by K3; delegates repository-level implementation and fixes
03Delegate and automate
- Agent Swarm — Splits one request into multiple sub-agents running in parallel (subtask counts vary by plan)
- Scheduled Tasks — Automated recurring runs such as report generation
- Kimi Work / Kimi Claw — Agent products for business use; Kimi Claw requires Allegretto or above
- Plugins, Dream Memory, Goal Mode — Plugin integrations, cross-conversation memory, goal-driven execution (varies by plan)
Pricing
Plan names and prices differ between the international version (USD) and the China version (RMB). All figures below are official listings as of August 19, 2026. From Japan you would use the international USD plans; there is no JPY pricing.
International (per the www.kimi.ai help center, USD):
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (per month) | Annual total | Highlights |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moderato | $19 | $15 | $180 | ~60 agent credits / 2 parallel tasks / Agent Swarm |
| Allegretto | $39 | $31 | $372 | Adds Kimi Claw and Goal Mode |
| Allegro | $99 | $79 | $948 | ~360 credits / 4 parallel tasks / extra-long K3 chat |
| Vivace | $199 | $159 | $1,908 | ~720 credits / largest parallel capacity |
All membership features draw from a single credit pool metered by actual token consumption, and Kimi Code has its own separate usage limit. The same monthly prices ($19 / $39 / $99 / $199) appear as iOS in-app purchases.
The China version (kimi.com help center, RMB) has four tiers: Andante ¥49, Moderato ¥99, Allegretto ¥199, and Allegro ¥699 per month.
API (platform.kimi.ai, USD, tax excluded):
| Model | Input (cache hit) | Input (cache miss) | Output | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| kimi-k3 | $0.30 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 1,048,576 tokens |
Prices are per 1 million tokens. Other models include kimi-k2.7-code (coding-focused) and kimi-k2.6; the legacy Moonshot V1 series is scheduled to sunset on August 31, 2026. China uses a separate site (platform.moonshot.cn) with RMB pricing.
Payment is in USD; JPY payment is not supported. If you pay with a Japanese credit card, the billed amount depends on the exchange rate at settlement and your card issuer's fees. We could not find refund terms for mid-term cancellation in the official help (as of August 2026). Annual billing offers larger discounts, but starting with monthly billing is safer.
Free plan and trial
With a free account, regular chat is free. The official help states that chatting with K2.6 is free and does not consume membership credits. No credit card registration is required.
Agentic features — Agent Swarm, Kimi Code, and extra-long K3 chat — assume a paid plan. How much of the agent functionality free accounts can try (trial credit amounts) is not specified on the official pricing page (as of August 2026).
Japanese language support
- UI — The web version's language settings do not include Japanese (English, Simplified/Traditional Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and a dozen or so others). The iOS app lists Japanese among its supported languages on the App Store.
- Input/output — Kimi can answer Japanese questions in Japanese. K3 is a multilingual model and can generate Japanese documents and slides, though there is no official quality benchmark for Japanese, and reviewers note it is weaker on technical terminology and honorifics than English or Chinese.
- Support — The help center and support are in English or Chinese. There is no official Japanese support channel.
Reputation and track record
Figures verifiable from primary sources (all as of August 19, 2026):
- GitHub stars — About 11,100 for MoonshotAI/Kimi-K2 and about 8,500 for MoonshotAI/Kimi-K3. K2 drew major attention at its July 2025 release as a 1-trillion-parameter open-weights LLM.
- Funding — According to Bloomberg (July 29, 2026), Moonshot AI raised $3.5 billion at a $35 billion valuation. China's state AI industry investment fund was among the lead investors, and the company reportedly aims for a Hong Kong listing.
- Benchmarks — The official repository reports that K3 matches or exceeds other flagship models on reasoning, coding, agentic, and vision benchmarks (self-reported).
No official list of enterprise customers or user counts is published. Named reviews in Japanese remain limited.
How it differs from other tools
As a China-born open-weights LLM, its closest comparisons are DeepSeek and Qwen. Kimi's distinguishing trait is that beyond releasing models, its app is built around an agent that finishes deliverables — slides, documents, and code.
| Aspect | Kimi | DeepSeek | Qwen | ChatGPT / Claude |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Provider | Moonshot AI (China, private) | DeepSeek (China) | Alibaba (China) | OpenAI / Anthropic (US) |
| Model weights | Open weights (K3 License) | Open weights | Many models open source | Closed |
| Context | ~1M tokens | 1M tokens (V4) | Varies by model | Up to ~1M tokens |
| App focus | Agents (docs, research, code) | Chat and API | Chat, images, video | Chat and agents |
| Japanese UI | None (iOS app only) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Paid plans | From $19/month | Mostly free chat | Mostly free | From ~$20/month |
If you prioritize a Japanese UI or general-purpose chat polish, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini come first. For developers weighing API unit costs and self-hosting, comparing Kimi, DeepSeek, and Qwen is the practical exercise.
What to check before adopting (data handling)
Because the provider is a Chinese company, check the following against your own standards before business use.
01Data storage location differs by edition
The China version (kimi.com's Chinese terms) states that personal information is stored within the People's Republic of China. Meanwhile, the API platform (platform.kimi.ai) is provided by the Singapore entity MOONSHOT AI PTE. LTD., which states that collected information is stored on servers in Singapore. Confirm which terms apply to your contract.
02Training use of inputs
The China version's privacy policy states that inputs and outputs are used to optimize models, and that you can opt out by contacting customer service. We could not confirm explicit opt-out procedures for the international version, so operating on the assumption of not entering confidential or personal information is the safe default.
03The operator is identifiable
Moonshot AI is not an anonymous operator but a prominent AI company headquartered in Beijing. Even so, judge against your internal information-management rules and cross-border data-transfer policies.
FAQ
Q. How much can I do for free?
Regular chat is free. The official help states that K2.6 chat consumes no credits. Serious use of agent features — slide generation, Deep Research, Kimi Code — requires a paid plan (from $19/month).
Q. Does it work in Japanese?
Chat input and output work fine in Japanese, but the web UI has no Japanese option (the iOS app has a Japanese UI). Support is available only in English and Chinese.
Q. Can I pay in Japanese yen?
No. Prices are in USD (RMB for the China version); there is no JPY display or settlement. Payments with a Japanese card are converted at the exchange rate at the time of settlement.
Q. Are my inputs used for training?
The China version's terms state that inputs/outputs are used for model optimization and provide an opt-out channel. Detailed procedures for the international version could not be confirmed in writing, so we recommend not entering confidential information.
Q. Can I cancel or get a refund?
Subscriptions auto-renew and can be canceled from settings. We could not find refund terms for mid-term cancellation in the official help (as of August 2026). Consider trying monthly billing before committing to an annual plan.
Q. What is the difference between Kimi K2 and K3?
K2 (July 2025) is a text LLM with 1 trillion total / 32B active parameters, released under a Modified MIT License. K3 (July 2026) has 2.8 trillion total / 104B active parameters and supports image/video input and a 1M-token context. In between came K2.5, K2.6, and K2.7-Code (coding-focused).
Provider
Moonshot AI (Beijing Moonshot Technology Co., Ltd.) is an AI company founded in Beijing in March 2023 by Yang Zhilin and others. It is privately held; Bloomberg reported (July 2026) that a $3.5 billion raise brought its valuation to $35 billion, with a Hong Kong listing as the goal. The international service and API are provided by the Singapore entity MOONSHOT AI PTE. LTD.
Its main products are the Kimi AI assistant (web/iOS/Android), the Kimi Code coding agent, Kimi Work for business, the developer API platform (platform.kimi.ai / platform.moonshot.cn), and the open-weights Kimi model series published on Hugging Face.
The information on this page is based on content published on the official site as of August 2026. Features and pricing may change; please check the official site for the latest information.
