AI Video Stack 2026 — Changelog Archive

This is the complete edit history for AI Video Stack 2026: Live Comparison & Rankings. Entries are preserved exactly as written — this is an audit trail, not a summary. The four most recent updates appear on the main Stack page.

March 13, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from March 7 to March 13, 2026
• Sora 2 (OpenAI): Added Sora 1 retirement notice (effective March 13, US users); added note on reported ChatGPT integration plans (The Information, March 12) and declining standalone app install figures (−45% MoM, January 2026); updated Disney licensing detail to specify all four brands (Disney, Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars); added Note spec bullet summarizing access changes
• Runway Gen-4 Turbo: Added $315M Series C / $5.3B valuation (February 2026); added two-paragraph description of Runway Characters (launched March 9) — real-time avatar API built on GWM-1, BBC and Silverside as launch partners, available at dev.runwayml.com; updated Best for tagline and spec bullets to reflect Characters alongside Gen-4 Turbo
• LTX-2 → LTX-2.3: Renamed entry to reflect new version; rewrote description to cover the 22B-parameter rebuild (new VAE, 4× text connector, HiFi-GAN vocoder), desktop video editor launch, portrait mode (9:16), last-frame interpolation, and 24/48fps options; updated NVIDIA acceleration figures from “3× / 60%” (CES) to “2.5× / 60%” (GDC RTX 50 Series specific); added RTX Video Super Resolution 30× upscaling stat; added ComfyUI App View simplified UI; updated spec bullets (true 4K native, 50fps, Apache 2.0 commercial licensing threshold)
• Other Notable Open-Source Models: Added Helios (Peking University / ByteDance / Canva) — 14B autoregressive diffusion model, 19.5fps real-time on single H100, Apache 2.0, released March 2026
• How to Choose routing framework: Updated “LTX-2” reference to “LTX-2.3”; added “Need real-time interactive avatars? → Runway Characters (GWM-1)”
• What’s Coming: Added “Sora integration into ChatGPT” item; updated “NVIDIA GTC 2026” from “later this month” to specific March 16–19 date with Jensen Huang keynote detail; all other items unchanged

March 20, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from March 13 to March 20, 2026
• Tags: Added regulation tag — regulatory developments are now a recurring weekly topic affecting multiple tracked models
• Runway Gen-4 Turbo: Added third description paragraph covering the GTC real-time video model research preview (sub-100ms TTF on Vera Rubin hardware, March 17) and Gen-4.5 signal (confirmed running on Vera Rubin ahead of public release, no launch date); added Next: spec bullet summarizing both developments
• Seedance 2.0 Pro: Added paragraph noting legislative reinforcement from the Blackburn draft AI bill (March 19) — which, if enacted, would make unauthorized AI training use of copyrighted works categorically not fair use; updated Note: spec bullet to reference the bill
• What’s Coming: Removed “NVIDIA GTC 2026” item (event concluded); added “Runway Gen-4.5” (previewed at GTC); added “NVIDIA Vera Rubin cloud deployment H2 2026” (confirmed by AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft, OCI; 10× inference cost reduction); added “DLSS 5 Fall 2026” (neural rendering with VFX/filmmaking ambitions beyond gaming); added “Blackburn draft AI bill” (copyright/deepfake provisions); updated Seedance item to note Blackburn bill adds legislative pressure

March 27, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from March 20 to March 27, 2026
• Tags: Added luma tag to reflect Luma Ray 3.14 promotion to primary tracked model
• Sora 2 — OpenAI: Removed from active Big Seven tracking — product discontinued March 24, 2026. Section replaced with a brief discontinuation note citing $15M/day burn rate vs. $2.1M lifetime revenue, Disney deal collapse, and OpenAI’s pivot to robotics/world simulation. Model entry retained as a historical reference with strikethrough heading
• Luma Ray 3.14 — Luma AI: Added as new Big Seven entry, replacing Sora. Native 1080p, 4× faster generation, 3× cheaper per-second pricing vs. previous Ray. Ray3 Modify companion tool for hybrid performance/acting workflows. $900M Series C (HUMAIN), new London office. Enterprise deployments via Luma Agents (Publicis, Adidas, Mazda). Promoted from “Models to Watch” list
• Seedance 2.0 Pro: Added paragraph on Dreamina Seedance 2.0 relaunch (March 23) in Africa, South America, Middle East, Southeast Asia — US still excluded. Added paragraph on three-way Washington copyright standoff: Blackburn bill vs. White House AI framework vs. CLEAR Act (Schiff/Curtis). Updated Access and Note spec bullets to reflect Dreamina regional launch
• How to Choose routing framework: Removed “Need realistic physics? → Sora 2”; added “Need professional production volume at scale? → Luma Ray 3.14”; updated “character consistency” and “multi-shot narrative” routes to include Luma Ray 3.14 alongside Seedance as a US-accessible alternative
• What’s Coming: Removed “Sora integration into ChatGPT” (product dead); added “White House AI framework vs. CLEAR Act” (new copyright legislative developments); updated Seedance item to reflect Dreamina emerging-markets launch and US exclusion; added “OpenAI robotics/world simulation” item tracking what comes next from OpenAI in the video-adjacent space

April 4, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from March 27 to April 4, 2026
• Sora 2 — OpenAI (discontinued): Added specific shutdown timeline — app and web interface off April 26, 2026; API access continues until September 24, 2026
• Veo 3.1 — Google DeepMind: Major access and pricing update. Added Google Vids free tier (10 clips/month for any Google account, 8 sec at 720p, text-to-video and image-to-video); added Google AI Pro/Ultra features (1,000 clips/month, Lyria 3 music up to 3 min, AI avatars with scene/wardrobe control, YouTube export now live). Added Veo 3.1 Lite developer tier via Gemini API / Google AI Studio ($0.05/sec 720p, $0.08/sec 1080p, <50% cost of Fast tier, same speed). Updated “Best for” tagline, description paragraphs, Access spec, and API spec bullets. Updated Key features bullet to reflect Vids integration
• How to Choose routing framework: Added “Need a free starting point? → Veo 3.1 via Google Vids (10 free clips/month)”
• What’s Coming: Removed “Google Flow + YouTube integration” (YouTube export now live in Google Vids); added “Veo 3.1 Fast price cut April 7”; updated “OpenAI robotics/world simulation” item to include Sora API September 24 deadline; replaced with “Google Vids/Workspace expansion” item for ongoing paid tier rollout

April 11, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from April 4 to April 11, 2026
• Seedance 2.0 Pro: Updated benchmark position — no longer top-ranked on Artificial Analysis; displaced to #2 T2V by HappyHorse-1.0 (Elo 1,333) as of April 10. Updated US access status: Dreamina Seedance 2.0 now rolling out in US CapCut with real-face image-to-video disabled, unauthorized IP blocked, and invisible watermarking on all output. Updated Access, API, and Note spec bullets accordingly. Updated description paragraph to reflect that US was excluded but is now partially available
• Veo 3.1 — Google DeepMind: Confirmed Veo 3.1 Fast price reduction occurred April 7 as committed; removed “scheduled for April 7” language, updated API bullet to direct developers to Gemini API docs for current per-second rates; updated description paragraph to reflect the cut landed
• Other Notable Open-Source Models: Added HappyHorse-1.0 (Alibaba ATH AI Innovation Unit) — #1 T2V at Elo 1,333, #1 I2V at Elo 1,392 on Artificial Analysis; model in beta, weights and GitHub “coming soon”; expected to become the top open-source video model on release
• How to Choose routing framework: Updated Seedance routing entries to remove “(if accessible)” and add “via CapCut (US, with restrictions)” to reflect partial US access
• What’s Coming: Removed “Seedance 2.0 Pro US access” (resolved partially via CapCut with restrictions); removed “Veo 3.1 Fast price cut April 7” (confirmed delivered); added “HappyHorse-1.0 open-source weights” (coming soon per ATH team); added “TAKE IT DOWN Act platform compliance — May 19, 2026”; updated “Seedance copyright litigation” item to reflect current state with US CapCut access but unresolved studio disputes

April 17, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from April 11 to April 17, 2026
• Tags: Added skyreels tag to reflect SkyReels V4 promotion to tracked model
• Quick Reference table: Updated Wan 2.2 → Wan 2.7 with new capabilities (Thinking Mode, 5 task types, ComfyUI/Model Studio access); added SkyReels V4 row (1080p, 70 free credits/mo, open source); updated Grok Imagine resolution to note “1080p Pro coming”
• Wan 2.2 → Wan 2.7: Complete rewrite of model entry. Wan 2.7 released April 3 with Thinking Mode (chain-of-thought reasoning), 5 unified task types (T2V, I2V, video continuation, reference-to-video, video editing), ComfyUI 0.18.5 support, 1080p at 2–15 seconds
• SkyReels V1 → SkyReels V4: Updated from V1 to V4 in Other Notable Open-Source Models. SkyReels V4 (April 3) is the first open-source model with joint audio-video generation via dual-stream MMDiT; 1080p/32FPS, up to 15 seconds; Elo ~1,135 on Artificial Analysis T2V with audio; 70 free monthly credits
• HappyHorse-1.0: Updated Elo scores (T2V no audio: 1,361, up from 1,333; I2V no audio: 1,398, up from 1,392); added 15B parameter count and 40-layer unified Transformer architecture detail; added Happy Oyster world model release (April 16) — ATH’s interactive 3D environment generator for gaming, film, and VR
• Grok Imagine: Updated resolution spec to note 1080p Pro confirmed for late April 2026; added Quality + Speed dual generation modes (early April); updated engine description to “Aurora autoregressive MoE model”; added Next bullet for Pro tier; updated Access to include SuperGrok
• What’s Coming: Added “Grok Imagine Pro (1080p)” item — confirmed by Musk for late April, available to SuperGrok subscribers

April 20, 2026

• HappyHorse-1.0: T2V (no audio) Elo updated to 1,364 (from 1,361 as of April 17)

April 27, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from April 17 to April 27, 2026
• Tags: Added adobe, firefly, hunyuan, world-models — Adobe Firefly’s multi-model hub is now a primary distribution surface for tracked models; Tencent HY-World 2.0 establishes Hunyuan as a separate open-source thread; world-models is now a recurring beat
• Quick Reference table: Updated Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0, and Runway Gen-4 Turbo rows to flag Adobe Firefly as an additional access channel; renamed Kling row to “Kling 3.0 / 3.0 Omni” to surface the new variant; renamed Runway row to “Runway Gen-4 Turbo / Gen-4.5” to reflect Gen-4.5’s appearance via Firefly
• Sora 2 — OpenAI: Updated status line and shutdown timeline from future-tense to past-tense — consumer app and web interface went dark on April 26, 2026, as scheduled. API access still continues through September 24, 2026. Linked to April 27 weekly roundup
• Luma Ray 3.14: Added Boundless / Mazda commercial detail — Johannesburg agency delivered Mazda’s first AI-produced commercial in under two weeks using Luma Agents (April 2026); positioned as the most credible production-deployment signal for any AI video platform this year
• Kling 3.0 → Kling 3.0 / Kling 3.0 Omni: Renamed entry; added Kling 3.0 Omni variant with shot/camera/character controls; added paragraph on April 15 Adobe Firefly hub addition; updated Access spec to include Adobe Firefly distribution
• Veo 3.1 — Google DeepMind: Updated Access spec to note Adobe Firefly multi-model hub availability (April 15)
• Runway Gen-4 Turbo: Updated description to note Gen-4.5 is now accessible via Adobe Firefly (April 15) — Runway’s first major distribution beyond its own platform; updated Access, Next bullets, and What’s Coming entry accordingly
• Grok Imagine — xAI: Added paragraph on Grok 4.3 Beta native video understanding (April 17); paired generation + understanding under one model family; updated Key feature bullet
• Pika 2.5 — Pika Labs: Added PikaStream 1.0 (April 2) — real-time AI video engine for live agent meetings (24fps/480p, ~1.5s latency); flagged Pika blog quiet period since launch; updated spec bullets to reflect both Pika 2.5 and PikaStream
• Other Notable Open-Source Models: Renamed HunyuanVideo entry to “HunyuanVideo / HY-World 2.0” — added Tencent’s April 16 multi-modal world model release with editable 3D scenes (meshes + Gaussian Splattings) and open weights; positioned as the more pipeline-friendly counterpart to Alibaba’s gated Happy Oyster
• How to Choose routing framework: Added “Need real-time live AI video for agent meetings?” → PikaStream 1.0; added “Need Adobe Creative Cloud integration?” → Firefly multi-model hub; added “Need editable 3D world / scene generation?” → HY-World 2.0 or Happy Oyster; expanded multi-shot routing to include Kling 3.0 Omni
• What’s Coming: Updated Runway Gen-4.5 entry — now in market via Firefly, standalone runwayml.com launch still pending; updated OpenAI / Sora item to reflect April 26 app shutdown executed and remaining September 24 API sunset; added “Adobe Firefly multi-model expansion” item; added “Tencent vs. Alibaba 3D world model race” item

May 4, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from April 27 to May 4, 2026
• Tags: Added fal, minimax, pika-agents — fal is now a primary distribution surface for HappyHorse-1.0; MiniMax surfaces as one of the orchestrated models inside Pika Agents; Pika Agents is its own product line worth tagging separately from pika
• Quick Reference table: Rewrote HappyHorse-1.0 row to reflect commercial API launch (April 27) — Max Resolution 1080p (joint audio, 7-language lip-sync), Free Tier Weights pending; API live, Paid From $0.14/sec 720p · $0.28/sec 1080p, API ✓ via fal.ai + Alibaba Cloud Bailian. Renamed Pika row to “Pika 2.5 / Pika Agents” with Best For updated to flag the multi-model orchestration layer. Updated Grok Imagine row resolution annotation to (Pro 1080p delayed past April)
• HappyHorse-1.0 — promoted to standalone entry: Moved from a single bullet in “Other Notable Open-Source Models” to a full standalone section within Open-Source & Local Generation. Covers the April 7 anonymous reveal, April 10 Alibaba unmasking, April 27 commercial API launch on fal (4 endpoints, $0.14/sec 720p, $0.28/sec 1080p) plus Alibaba Cloud Bailian enterprise rollout, current Elo 1,354 T2V / 1,392 I2V (no-audio leaderboards), Elo 1,218 audio-included T2V (#2, near-tied with Seedance at 1,220), 15B-parameter unified Transformer architecture, joint audio-video in a single forward pass, seven-language native lip-sync, ~38s inference for 1080p on a single H100. Open-weights credibility section: ATH’s “fully open-sourced” landing-page claim diverges from the empty GitHub repo; treat HappyHorse-1.0 as a commercial model with an open-source promise until weights actually ship
• Pika 2.5 — Pika Labs: Added Pika Agents (April 28) paragraph — multi-modal AI creative partner orchestrating Pika Video, Seedance 2.0, Kling, MiniMax, Veo 3, and Sora; audio via ElevenLabs / MiniMax / Whisper; 17+ platform surfaces (Slack, Telegram, Discord, X, Notion, Figma, Zoom, etc.). Closes the “Pika blog quiet” thread flagged in the April 27 update — Pika answered with the agent product. Renamed entry heading to “Pika 2.5 / Pika Agents.” Updated Best For tagline, Audio spec bullet, Key feature bullet, and Access bullet to reflect the agent product alongside Pika 2.5 and PikaStream 1.0
• Grok Imagine — xAI: Added paragraph on the 1080p Pro tier missing its late-April commitment and slipping into May with no new public timeline. Reframed the competitive context: Veo 3.1 Lite ships 1080p at $0.08/sec, Kling 3.0 ships native 4K at $8/mo, Pika 2.5 ships 1080p at $8/mo, even open-source LTX-2.3 outputs true 4K — every week Pro slips, the per-minute price advantage matters less and the resolution gap matters more. Updated Max resolution spec, Next bullet, and linked the May 4 roundup
• Other Notable Open-Source Models: Replaced HappyHorse-1.0 paragraph with a brief “promoted above” pointer. Pulled Happy Oyster out into its own bullet, placed adjacent to HunyuanVideo / HY-World 2.0 since both are 3D world models from Chinese labs released April 16
• How to Choose routing framework: Added “Need top benchmark quality with commercial API access?” → HappyHorse-1.0 via fal.ai or Alibaba Cloud Bailian. Added “Need a multi-model creative agent that orchestrates Kling, Veo, Seedance, MiniMax, and Sora from a conversational interface?” → Pika Agents
• What’s Coming: Added “Veo 4 expected at Google I/O 2026” item (May 19–20; Google has used I/O for Veo announcements in both 2024 and 2025). Updated “Grok Imagine Pro (1080p)” item to reflect the late-April slip. Updated “HappyHorse-1.0 open-source weights” item with the credibility-test framing — ATH’s “fully open-sourced” marketing claim diverges from the empty GitHub repo state; commercial API launched separately

May 10, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from May 5 to May 10, 2026 (the May 5 lastmod was a Stack rename housekeeping touch; substantive content last edited May 4)
• Veo 3.1 — Google DeepMind: Added paragraph on Veo’s April 29 arrival on Gemini-enabled TCL Google TVs in the US — voice-driven generation through Gemini’s Create tab, either from scratch or by animating still images; Nano Banana ships alongside in the same Gemini-on-TV bundle; TCL-only and US-only at launch. Updated Access spec bullet to include the new TV distribution surface alongside Flow / Vids / Adobe Firefly. Updated Key features bullet to mention voice-driven generation on Google TV. Catch-up from the May 5 housekeeping window
• What’s Coming: Replaced standalone “Veo 4 expected at Google I/O 2026” item with a unified “Google I/O 2026 (May 19–20)” entry covering both the Veo 4 expectation and the early-May “Omni” leak. A UI string in Gemini’s video tab reading “Powered by Omni” (captured May 2 by TestingCatalog) replaced the prior “Veo 3.1” attribution on the same surface. Three plausible readings — Veo rebrand, parallel new Gemini-trained video model, or unified image-video omni-model collapsing the Veo / Nano Banana split — resolve on stage May 19
• What’s Coming: Rewrote TAKE IT DOWN Act item with full compliance bar (48-hour removal window from valid notice, FTC Section 5 enforcement, Section 230 non-shield, nonprofits in scope) and the observation that no major AI video lab — Runway, Kling, Veo, Pika, HappyHorse, LTX — has published a compliance page as of May 8. Deadline is nine days out at update time
• What’s Coming: Rewrote HappyHorse-1.0 open-source weights item with explicit “no movement in two weeks” framing — empty public GitHub (no weights, no inference code, no license), “coming soon” Hugging Face, and an ATH marketing claim that hasn’t softened or acknowledged the gap. If weights don’t ship before Google I/O, expect “coming soon” through summer to be the operational posture
• What’s Coming — added (same-day re-touch after Cowork comparison): New “White House FDA-style AI vetting EO” item — NEC Director Hassett confirmed May 6 (Bloomberg, CNBC) the White House is drafting an EO requiring frontier AI models to pass federal pre-release review on an FDA-drug-approval model; Google, Microsoft, xAI named in-scope; “next two weeks” window; Anthropic’s Mythos model the policy trigger. Would reset launch calculus for every commercial video model at frontier scale
• What’s Coming — added (same-day re-touch after Cowork comparison): New “State deepfake legislation map” item — Connecticut HB 5312 (private right of action against creators of nonconsensual AI-generated intimate imagery), Vermont election-deepfake bill, Iowa chatbot-safety law, Utah’s nine AI bills to Cox on May 6, joining Tennessee ELVIS Act, California AB 2655, and New York’s election-deepfake law. Federal preemption isn’t happening this year; AI video labs need to model state civil exposure alongside federal compliance

May 18, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from May 10 to May 18, 2026
• Tags: Added higgsfield — Higgsfield Supercomputer surfaces as an agentic-orchestration entrant
• Kling 3.0 / 3.0 Omni — Kuaishou: Added paragraph on Kuaishou’s May 13 confirmation it is weighing external financing for Kling AI (company-stated as preliminary, no definitive agreements); reported ~$20B target valuation / ~$2B pre-IPO round / Tencent among potential investors / ~$500M annualized revenue flagged explicitly as press attribution, not company-confirmed. Framed as the clearest commercial-scale signal in AI video to date and first pure-play comparable since Sora
• Runway Gen-4 Turbo — Runway: Added Runway Agent (May 13, conversational end-to-end production) and the $40M Japan expansion (Tokyo office; enterprise base tripled — Yamaha/SoftBank/NHN); updated Best for tagline, Key features, Access, and Next bullets; positioned within the agentic-orchestration layer
• HappyHorse-1.0: Updated open-weights framing from “two weeks” to week-three current status (no movement, no ship date, marketing claim unchanged) in both the model entry and the What’s Coming item
• How to Choose routing framework: Broadened the multi-model-agent route to include Higgsfield Supercomputer alongside Pika Agents; noted Runway Agent for the single-vendor end-to-end case
• What’s Coming: Added “Agentic-orchestration layer” item (Luma/Pika/Runway/Higgsfield convergence, with the open structural question of whether it needs its own section); rewrote “TAKE IT DOWN Act platform compliance” to current state (May 19 imminent; FTC’s 15-platform warning letters May 13; $53,088/violation; hash-dedup FTC-recommended-not-mandated; generators unnamed but covered at output stage); added “State synthetic-media provenance mandates” item (CT SB 5 awaiting signature, AZ SB 1786 Senate-passed, HI HB 2137) as a track distinct from the NCII-liability item
• Considered and excluded: Apple/HeyGen AI-presenters (single-source, unverified — same exclusion as the roundup); Google I/O “What’s Coming” item left as-is (accurate pre-keynote; Wednesday pulse + next roundup carry the actual reveal); Higgsfield not added as a Big-N model entry (it is an orchestrator, not a base model — tracked as a What’s Coming category pending a structural decision); Quick Reference table and params.toml [landscape] counts unchanged (no model spec/pricing/access change; no model added or removed)
• Process note: Phase-2 executed as an uninterrupted Edit sequence (single reviewable git diff, no operator pause) rather than a hand-retyped full-file Write as the skill’s literal text specifies — chosen to eliminate transcription risk on a 477-line living-reference page. Same single-diff review outcome. Flagged for skill update: the landscape-skill should codify “atomic uninterrupted Edit sequence in one Phase-2 turn” as equivalent to the mandated Write

May 24, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from May 18 to May 24, 2026. The lastmod is set to 5/24 deliberately so the May 25, 2026 Weekly Roundup (R#5) leads as tomorrow’s headline article rather than being chronologically tied with this Stack update — operator-explicit instruction
• Tags: Added omni, gemini, aleph — Gemini Omni launched at I/O 2026; Aleph 2.0 is Runway’s May 21 editing-model launch
• The Big Seven → The Big Eight: Section heading updated; commercial entry count rises to 8 with Gemini Omni Flash joining
• Quick Reference table: Added Gemini Omni Flash row (Best For: multimodal input, broadest free distribution, SynthID provenance; Max Resolution: not published at launch; Free Tier: YouTube Shorts + YouTube Create; Paid From: $19.99/mo Google AI Plus; API: coming weeks). Renamed Runway row from “Gen-4 Turbo / Gen-4.5” to “Gen-4 Turbo / Aleph 2.0” with multishot edit propagation added to Best For
• Gemini Omni Flash — Google DeepMind: New commercial entry, placed after Veo 3.1. Launched May 19, 2026 at Google I/O — Flash tier shipped that day; Pro tier on “soon” with no shipping date. Multimodal any-to-any input (image / audio / video / text → video output); SynthID watermark by default on every output. Paid via Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra in the Gemini app and Google Flow; free distribution rolling into YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create; developer and enterprise APIs in “coming weeks.” Honest hedge on resolution and duration — Google’s launch blog published no specs. Internal links to the Omni flagship analysis (/posts/omni-world-model-claim/) and to the May 25 Weekly Roundup for the distribution news-beat
• Runway Gen-4 Turbo → Runway Gen-4 Turbo / Aleph 2.0: Entry heading renamed. Added paragraph on Aleph 2.0 launch (May 21) — upgraded video editing model with single-frame edit propagation across the rest of a clip; multishot sequences up to 30s at 1080p edited across cuts in one pass; localized edits via reference frame; ships inside the new Edit Studio product surface; available on all paid Runway plans on desktop web. Updated Max resolution, Key features, Access, and Next spec bullets to reflect Aleph 2.0 and Edit Studio
• How to Choose routing framework: Added “Need free AI video inside an app you already use? → Gemini Omni Flash via YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create”; added “Need multimodal input (image + audio + video → video)? → Gemini Omni”; added “Need to edit one frame and have it propagate across a 30-second multishot? → Runway Aleph 2.0 in Edit Studio”
• What’s Coming — removed “Google I/O 2026 (May 19–20)”: Resolved. Omni launched and is now a Big Eight entry alongside Veo 3.1; Veo 4 was not announced at I/O (verified against the Pichai keynote primary)
• What’s Coming — “White House FDA-style AI vetting EO” → “AI executive order revival posture”: On May 21, Trump postponed signing the FDA-style frontier-model review EO hours before the scheduled ceremony (Axios + PBS NewsHour primary verification); the framework that would have generalized CAISI’s bilateral pre-deployment evaluation agreements across the field is on hold. Whether the order returns in slimmer form within weeks (Hassett-side) or stays shelved indefinitely (Sacks-side) defines federal AI policy through the rest of 2026 — and the launch calculus for every commercial video model that would have landed inside the framework
• What’s Coming — “TAKE IT DOWN Act platform compliance” → “TAKE IT DOWN Act enforcement first action”: Item rewritten to current state. May 19 deadline passed; FTC opened formal enforcement on schedule (TakeItDown.ftc.gov stood up, business-guidance documentation published); same-day second-wave warning letter to 12 “nudify” tool sites on top of the May 13 fifteen-platform cohort. First enforcement target — platform, tool, or generator — sets the operative precedent for the rest of the year
• What’s Coming — “State synthetic-media provenance mandates” updated: Added California SB 1000 progression (Senate passed 33–1 with urgency clause May 19; urgency designation triggers immediate effect on signature) and Hawaii HB 2137 status (sat 18 days on Governor Green’s desk without signature; capitol.hawaii.gov returns 403 to automated fetches; status verified against Transparency Coalition tracker). Arizona SB 1786 reconciliation stalled through May 22
• What’s Coming — added “Gemini Omni Pro shipping window”: New item. Google announced Pro at I/O with no shipping date; “soon” with the timer running. Independent benchmarks for Omni Flash against Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0, and HappyHorse-1.0 are the test that converts the launch keynote’s world-model framing from rhetoric to evidence — or not
• Considered and excluded: Agentic-orchestration layer Stack section (deferred per operator instruction to the 2026-05-26 ops meeting — existing standing-watch item governs); Kling 2027 IPO target with Tencent anchor (Cowork comparison drop cited a Pandaily URL that 404s; “2027” attributed to internal Kuaishou board documents with no public primary surfacing in WebSearch — hold until a primary lands); Higgsfield as a base-model entry (still an orchestrator, not a base model — same exclusion as 2026-05-18, pending the 5/26 structural decision); Veo brand retirement claim (Cowork-comparison framing; Pichai keynote primary contains no Veo discontinuation language — verified against blog.google/innovation-and-ai/sundar-pichai-io-2026/ during R#5 sourcing pass)
• params.toml [landscape]: Bumped commercial = 7 → commercial = 8 to match the new Big Eight count; open_source = 9 unchanged
• Paired update outside this file: Synced up_next.date in content/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-05-25.md from 2026-05-18 to 2026-05-24 so the Stack’s lastmod precedes the Roundup’s publish date; ordering preserves the Roundup as tomorrow’s lead article
• Process note: Phase-2 executed as uninterrupted Edit sequence (same precedent as 2026-05-18) rather than a hand-retyped full-file Write — transcription-risk avoidance on a 499-line living-reference page

May 25, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from May 24 to May 25, 2026. Off-cycle mid-week edit (the standard cadence is Stack-paired-with-Roundup on Mondays). Operator-approved out-of-band to capture an additional week of GSC indexing data before the next settled-week read
• Quick Verdict section added: New ## Quick Verdict: Best AI Video Model by Use Case (2026) block inserted between the intro paragraph and the Quick Reference table. Nine declarative “Best for X — Model Y” verdicts each carrying a one-line judgment, anchored at #quick-verdict, with a section-level link forward to #how-to-choose-a-routing-framework for the deeper decision tree. Verdicts: photorealism (Veo 3.1), broadcast 4K (Kling 3.0), character consistency (Seedance 2.0 Pro), stylized/VFX (Runway Gen-4 Turbo), editing existing video (Aleph 2.0), free consumer distribution (Gemini Omni Flash), open-source local generation (LTX-2.3), benchmark quality with API (HappyHorse-1.0), cheapest commercial API (Grok Imagine). Designed to capture head-keyword queries (“best ai video generation models 2026 comparison,” “top text-to-video ai models comparison 2026”) that GSC W20–W21 data showed ranking at positions 70–95 despite the Stack containing the underlying content
• Why this lands here, not in a new article: The Stack already covers the comparison data; the missing element was framing the data the way head-query searchers expect (declarative verdicts vs. a 499-line reference). Improving the Stack’s head-query SEO is Tier 1 of a three-tier plan; Tier 2 (selective “X vs Y” comparison pieces under the mid-tier Sonnet slot) and Tier 3 (standalone “Best AI Video Model 2026” article) are gated on the Tier-1 ranking lift over 4–6 weeks of crawl cycles
• Considered and excluded: Direct anchor links to individual model entries (Hugo’s auto-generated heading anchors are version-specific and brittle for headings with slashes / em-dashes — chose section-level link instead); a “Best for production volume — Luma Ray 3.14” verdict (Luma is on the Big Eight but doesn’t dominate a unique head-query slot; would risk diluting the more recognizable verdicts); agentic-orchestration platforms in the verdict list (they’re orchestration layers, not single-model verdicts — stays in #how-to-choose-a-routing-framework, awaits the 2026-05-26 ops meeting structural decision)
• Paired update outside this file: Synced up_next.date in content/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-05-25.md from 2026-05-24 to 2026-05-25 so R#5’s teaser card matches the current Stack lastmod. Both surfaces now share the 2026-05-25 date; Roundup leads in time-sorted feeds via its T05:00:00 publish time vs. Stack’s default-midnight lastmod
• Process note: Phase 1 pre-flight surfaced full verdict prose to operator before Phase 2 atomic-write; no per-edit pauses within Phase 2 (same precedent as 2026-05-18 / 2026-05-24)
• Sora 2 — OpenAI entry moved to end of Big Eight section: Sora 2 is discontinued (consumer shutdown executed April 26, 2026; API sunset September 24, 2026) and previously sat in the first position immediately after the section intro promising “production-grade models dominating professional and creator workflows in early 2026” — an editorial tension between the intro’s dominance claim and a tombstone-as-first-entry. Move-to-end resolves it: active models lead the section (Luma Ray 3.14 now first), Sora 2 closes as the historical reference and post-mortem anchor. Entry content preserved verbatim per CLAUDE.md “never remove without good reason” discipline; only the position changed.
• How to Choose routing framework restructured for SEO efficiency: All 19 bullets reworded from need-form (Need X? → Y) to declarative-question form anchored on head keywords (Which AI video model wins X? Y.). Targets long-tail question-shape queries Google’s NLP wasn’t surfacing us for under the prior Need X? framing. Phrasing varied across the list to avoid drone effect. Answer-on-same-line preserved so routing-decision scan time stays fast. Punctuation shifted from → (flowchart) to ? + . (prose).

May 31, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from May 25 to May 31, 2026. lastmod set to 5/31 deliberately so the June 1 Weekly Roundup (R#6) leads as the headline article rather than tying with this Stack update (lead-by-one rule); R#6 up_next.date synced to 5/31 in the same pass. Ships today (Sunday) per the standard Stack-paired-with-Roundup cadence.
• NEW SECTION — The Agentic Layer: Orchestration on Top of the Models {#agentic}: Dedicated H2 placed after The Big Eight, before Open-Source. Resolves the open structural question raised 2026-05-18 (agentic layer had no home in the Stack). Build derived from drafts/2026-05-26-agentic-orchestration-brief.md (Carlos-approved); decision-to-build pulled forward from the 6/2 gate to today. Five confirmed agents in a 7-column orchestration table (Agent · Vendor · Orchestrates · Single/Multi-model · Surfaces · What it automates · Access) + per-agent paragraphs: Luma Agents, Pika Agents (PikaStream 1.0 as a sub-bullet — runtime, not orchestrator), Runway Agent, Higgsfield Supercomputer, Adobe Firefly AI Assistant. Lead paragraph carries the “model is the engine, agent is the steering wheel” thesis; what-to-watch footer names three axes (single/multi-vendor convergence, AI-native vs incumbent, agent-to-agent interop). Archive callbacks to R#2 (Pika Agents lede) and R#4 (Mazda/Boundless) threaded.
• Census frontier closed: Krea AI and LTX Studio both evaluated against the agent-vs-aggregator test and excluded — Krea is a menu-driven model picker (REST API, no conversational orchestration); LTX Studio is a timeline/studio tool (multi-model but menu-driven, no persistent cross-session context). Both fit the deferred “Tools” framing, not the agentic section.
• Intro repositioned: “AI video software stack” → “AI video software stack — models, orchestration agents, and open-source generation,” reflecting the new three-part structure.
• Arena updates (routine refresh, through 5/29): HappyHorse-1.0 repositioned to #2 on Artificial Analysis T2V no-audio (Elo 1,212; Seedance 2.0 now #1 at 1,215 — 3-Elo gap, inside the noise band); #1 on I2V no-audio unchanged. Grok Imagine added at #5 T2V no-audio (Elo 1,234 — effectively tied with Kling 3.0 Omni at #4). Updated in the Quick Verdict, Quick Reference table, and the HappyHorse + Grok Imagine model entries; new Quick Verdict bullet “Best multi-model orchestration agent — Pika Agents.”
• What’s Coming — three new items: Reactor (real-time world models as infrastructure — $59M stealth exit May 28, Lightspeed-led, Katzenberg board observer; a category the Stack doesn’t yet track); MCP as a distribution layer for AI video (Runway/Pika/Higgsfield MCP cluster May 27–28 + Higgsfield Adobe Premiere/After Effects plugins); Dreamina Octo (pre-launch, “Vibe Create,” early-access survey live). Existing agentic-orchestration item updated from four to five agents with #agentic anchor links and “now has its own dedicated section.”
• Homepage band — third tier: params.toml [landscape] agentic = 5 added; layouts/index.html extended to a three-tier band (agentic count read, three-way cell loop, third legend swatch + counter card linking #agentic); static/css/rctv.css adds --landscape-agentic: #ece4d0, cell--agentic, swatch--agentic. The #ece4d0 reuse (same hex as the Mode B roundup-infographic background) is an acknowledged cross-surface exception, documented in knowledge/design-system-brief.md.
• Paired updates outside this file: .claude/commands/rctv-landscape-update.md (§ Structure gains the Agentic Layer; § Models to Watch resolves the open structural question + adds a “Tracked agents” subsection with inclusion criteria; params.toml sync step now three-tier); knowledge/design-system-brief.md (new “Landscape band — tier colors” section); content/posts/ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-06-01.md (up_next.date 5/25 → 5/31).
• Process note: Agentic-section content + routine-refresh deltas drafted by the Writer-Researcher blind of the sealed Cowork landscape comparison (knowledge/transitions/2026-05-29-roundup-comparison/, held for a post-build exit-test); Hugo template / CSS / params / paired-knowledge edits by the EIC. Phase-2 atomic Edit sequence, no full-file rewrite (transcription-risk avoidance on the now-630-line page).

June 7, 2026

• Last updated date: Advanced from May 31 to June 7, 2026. lastmod set to 6/7 deliberately so the June 8 Weekly Roundup (R#7) leads as the headline article rather than tying with this Stack update (lead-by-one rule). Ships Sunday per the standard Stack-paired-with-Roundup cadence.
• Tags: Added cosmos, black-forest-labs, flux, agnes-video — NVIDIA Cosmos 3 enters open-source tracking; BFL/FLUX and Agnes-Video surface as What’s-Coming entrants.
• Grok Imagine — xAI: Added Grok Imagine Video 1.5 (June 3) — xAI’s first native image-to-video API ($0.08/sec, 60 RPM, audio output, alias grok-imagine-video-1.5-2026-05-30); opens #2 on the Artificial Analysis I2V with-audio arena (Elo 1,110), behind Seedance 2.0 and ahead of HappyHorse-1.0. xAI’s #1-debut claim not borne out by the live board. New model paragraph + Arena / Max-resolution bullets; Quick Verdict + Quick Reference Grok row updated.
• Arena standings refresh (verified against live Artificial Analysis boards, June 7): T2V no-audio — HappyHorse-1.0 #1 (1,293), Seedance 2.0 #2 (1,274), Grok #5 (1,235). T2V with-audio — Seedance 2.0 #1 (1,215), HappyHorse #2 (1,122): a 92-point gap reopened after a June recalibration (near-tied a week earlier). I2V with-audio — Seedance 2.0 #1 (1,194), Grok 1.5 #2 (1,110), HappyHorse #3 (1,094). Corrected a stale board-conflation in the prior Quick Verdict / HappyHorse standings. Updated Quick Verdict (HappyHorse + Grok), Quick Reference (Grok + HappyHorse rows), and the Seedance / HappyHorse / Grok model-entry benchmark bullets.
• Other Notable Open-Source — added NVIDIA Cosmos 3: Open-weights omnimodel (Cosmos 3 Super + Nano on Hugging Face, OpenMDW-1.1, June 1; 291-author arXiv paper). NVIDIA’s “top open-source T2I/I2V” claim attributed, not independently confirmed.
• The Agentic Layer — Higgsfield Supercomputer: Backbone upgraded to Claude Opus 4.8 (May 29); Higgsfield Reframe (May 30, MCP-native) noted. Table cell + paragraph.
• What’s Coming: Rewrote the “AI executive order” item from postponement to signed June 2 (voluntary 30-day frontier review, no-licensing language, cybersecurity package; OpenAI/Anthropic/Google welcomed) — resolves the May 21 pull. Added “Runway Cosmos Coalition” (June 1 alliance, base model unspecified), “Agnes-Video — a new API price floor” ($0.30/min, Elo 905 #24), and “Black Forest Labs enters the video conversation” (Scorsese adviser, FLUX.2, $300M Series B). Updated the HappyHorse open-weights item to ~6 weeks, AA-API-only.
• Considered and excluded: Agnes-Video as a Big Eight row (Elo 905, price-floor not production-grade — What’s-Coming watch); NVIDIA Cosmos 3 as a Big Eight row (open-weights physical-AI omnimodel — Open-Source Notable); Luma Human After All / Open Physical AI Lab (partnership + research lab, no shipped model — roundup material, not Stack).
• Paired update outside this file: params.toml [landscape] open_source 9 → 10 (Cosmos 3 added); commercial (8) and agentic (5) unchanged. R#7 (ai-video-weekly-roundup-2026-06-08.md) reads the Stack’s live .Lastmod for its up_next card — no date sync needed (template change shipped 5/31).
• Process note: Phase 1 pre-flight surfaced the 11-item change list (all standings pre-verified against live AA boards) before this Phase-2 atomic Edit sequence; no full-file rewrite (transcription-risk avoidance, ~660-line page). Stack deltas drafted blind of the June-5 Cowork comparison drop, read only after R#7 was built (exit-test discipline); the comparison’s verified catches — EO signing, Agnes, the arena recalibration — are reflected here.

June 11, 2026

• Page restructure (reference-card format): Every model and agent entry now leads with its spec card — the canonical location for volatile facts (pricing, resolution, arena positions, access) — followed by current-state analysis. Relative-time references removed page-wide (11 instances); duplicated stats reconciled to single canonical values (HappyHorse-1.0 T2V no-audio Elo confirmed at 1,293 against the live Artificial Analysis board). No facts removed: dated event history lives in this changelog.
• Changelog split: The Stack page now carries the four most recent update blocks; this archive holds the full history and is always complete.
• Navigation anchors: Stable anchors added to every model and agent entry; Quick Verdict bullets and Routing Framework answers now deep-link to entries.