AI Video Stack 2026: Live Comparison & Rankings

This is RCTV’s living reference to the AI video software stack. Updated as models launch, pricing changes, and capabilities evolve. Last updated: May 5, 2026.

Quick Reference: All Models at a Glance

Rankings and pricing change weekly. Scroll down for full model breakdowns.

The Big Seven: Commercial Models

These are the production-grade models dominating professional and creator workflows in early 2026. The market has matured to the point where no single model leads across all dimensions — the professional standard is now multi-model routing, choosing the right tool for each specific shot.

Sora 2 — OpenAI

Status: Discontinued March 24, 2026; consumer app shutdown executed April 26, 2026. RCTV analysis →

OpenAI announced Sora’s discontinuation on March 24, 2026 — the app, the API, and the Disney licensing deal that was announced with it in December 2025. The stated reason was compute reallocation toward “world simulation for robotics.” The numbers tell the fuller story: estimated $15M/day peak inference cost against $2.1M in total lifetime in-app revenue, and a 66% download decline from its November 2025 peak to February 2026. Sora is removed from active tracking. See Weekly Roundup — March 27, 2026 for the full breakdown.

Shutdown timeline: The Sora consumer app and web interface went dark on April 26, 2026 (Weekly Roundup — April 27, 2026) — the export window closed at that time. The Sora API remains accessible through September 24, 2026, giving developers time to migrate integrations before the model line fully retires.

Luma Ray 3.14 — Luma AI

Best for: Professional production volume, 1080p native output, cost-efficient multi-shot workflows

Luma AI’s Ray 3.14 is the most significant release of the week — and the model that steps into the commercial tier vacated by Sora’s shutdown. See Weekly Roundup — March 27, 2026 for the full launch breakdown. Native 1080p output, generation speed 4× faster than the previous Ray 3 model, and per-second pricing 3× cheaper. Ray3 Modify, a companion tool for hybrid performance and acting workflows, gives brands and studios more control over scene continuity and character consistency across shots.

Luma is positioning Ray explicitly as professional infrastructure priced for production volume rather than a consumer app — a distinction that looks strategically deliberate given Sora’s failure. The company’s $900M Series C led by HUMAIN, new London office, and enterprise Luma Agents deployments at Publicis, Adidas, and Mazda all reinforce this direction. The Mazda relationship produced a concrete deliverable in mid-April: Boundless, a Johannesburg agency, used Luma Agents to deliver Mazda’s first AI-produced commercial in under two weeks — the most credible production-deployment signal for any AI video platform this year.

• Max resolution: 1080p native
• Key features: Ray3 Modify (hybrid performance/acting control), Luma Agents platform (enterprise creative automation)
• Speed: 4× faster generation than previous Ray model
• Pricing: 3× cheaper per-second than previous Ray
• Access: Luma AI subscription; free tier available
• API: Available; enterprise deployments via Luma Agents

Kling 3.0 / Kling 3.0 Omni — Kuaishou

Best for: Feature density, broadcast-ready output, motion quality

The most capability-dense model available. Kling 3.0 is the first AI video model to meet broadcast delivery standards without upscaling, offering native 4K at 60fps. The storyboard feature generates up to six camera cuts in a single generation with visual consistency — a production-first capability no other model matches. The Kling 3.0 Omni variant adds finer-grained controls for shot duration, camera angle, and character movement across multi-shot sequences.

On April 15, 2026, both Kling 3.0 and Kling 3.0 Omni were added to Adobe Firefly’s multi-model video hub alongside Veo 3.1, Runway Gen-4.5, and 30+ other AI models — significantly broadening Kling’s distribution to Adobe Creative Cloud’s existing professional user base.

• Max resolution: 4K native (60fps)
• Frame rate: Up to 60fps
• Audio: Native built-in audio in six languages
• Key feature: Multi-cut storyboard generation (up to 6 camera cuts, 15s); Omni adds shot/camera/character controls
• Access: Free tier available; paid plans from ~$8/mo; also via Adobe Firefly (Creative Cloud subscription)
• API: Available via Kuaishou and third-party platforms

Veo 3.1 — Google DeepMind

Best for: Photorealism, 4K native output, integrated workflows, broadest free access

Google’s model pushes photorealistic rendering to the point where trained observers struggle to identify generated footage in blind tests. The engine behind Google Flow (merged creative workspace with Whisk, ImageFX, and multi-clip sequencing) and now Google Vids, which received a major update this week.

As of April 3, 2026, any Google account holder can generate Veo 3.1 clips for free via Google Vids (Weekly Roundup — April 4, 2026) — 10 generations per month, 8 seconds at 720p, from text prompts or uploaded images. Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers get more: up to 1,000 Veo clips per month, Lyria 3 custom music generation (tracks up to 3 minutes), customizable AI avatars with scene placement and wardrobe control, and direct YouTube export. This is the first time a production-grade AI video model has been made freely accessible to Google’s full account base.

On the developer side, Google launched Veo 3.1 Lite on March 31 via the Gemini API (Weekly Roundup — April 4, 2026) and Google AI Studio — priced at $0.05/sec for 720p and $0.08/sec for 1080p, less than half the cost of the existing Veo 3.1 Fast tier at the same generation speed. Supports text-to-video and image-to-video in 4-, 6-, and 8-second lengths, landscape and portrait. Veo 3.1 Fast received a further price reduction on April 7 as committed (Weekly Roundup — April 11, 2026) — compressing the full developer stack from the free consumer tier (Google Vids) through production-grade API calls. Check the Gemini API pricing documentation for current per-second rates.

• Max resolution: 4K native (Flow/Vertex AI); 1080p via Veo 3.1 Lite; 720p via Google Vids free tier
• Audio: Native synchronized audio
• Key features: Flow unified workspace; Google Vids integration (avatars, Lyria 3 music, YouTube export); Veo 3.1 Lite developer tier
• Access: Free — 10 clips/month via Google Vids (any Google account); Google AI Pro ($19.99/mo) and Ultra for higher limits; Flow is free; also via Adobe Firefly multi-model hub (April 15)
• API: Vertex AI ($12/min); Veo 3.1 Lite via Gemini API ($0.05/sec 720p, $0.08/sec 1080p); Veo 3.1 Fast pricing reduced April 7 (check Gemini API docs for current per-second rates)
• Milestone: 1.5 billion images and videos created by Flow users

Seedance 2.0 Pro — ByteDance

Best for: Character consistency, cinematic motion, multi-shot storytelling

The leading commercial model for character consistency and cinematic motion quality — and until this week, the top-ranked model on Artificial Analysis for both text-to-video and image-to-video. On April 10, Alibaba’s HappyHorse-1.0 displaced it to second place with an Elo score of 1,333 in T2V (Weekly Roundup — April 11, 2026) (roughly 60 points above Seedance’s position). Seedance 2.0 Pro’s Dual-Branch Diffusion Transformer generates audio and video simultaneously in a single pass. Its quad-modal input system accepts text, images, video, and audio in a single prompt. Multi-shot native storytelling and frame-level control over character appearance, object placement, and scene timing remain best-in-class for narrative work.

ByteDance’s official global API rollout was paused indefinitely in late February 2026 after the Motion Picture Association and major studios (Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros.) issued cease-and-desist letters over copyright concerns. The “Face-to-Voice” feature was suspended on February 10 after it was shown to clone voices from a single photo. Japan opened a separate inquiry over unauthorized anime character reproductions.

On March 23, 2026, ByteDance moved anyway — relaunching the model as Dreamina Seedance 2.0 (Weekly Roundup — March 27, 2026) across markets in Africa, South America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. As of April 2026, Dreamina Seedance 2.0 is now rolling out in the US via CapCut (Weekly Roundup — April 11, 2026) — a significant reversal of the prior exclusion. The deployment comes with content restrictions: image-to-video generation from inputs containing real faces is disabled, and generation of unauthorized intellectual property is blocked. All output carries an invisible watermark for off-platform identification. The rollout is phased and may not have reached all US CapCut accounts simultaneously.

The copyright landscape around Seedance grew more complex this week. The White House published its National Policy Framework for AI (March 2026) stating that AI training on copyrighted works does not constitute infringement — the opposite of the Blackburn bill’s position. Separately, the bipartisan CLEAR Act (Schiff/Curtis) would require public disclosure of training data without resolving the fair use question either way. Three incompatible federal positions now coexist: Blackburn (training = not fair use), White House (training = fine, let courts decide), CLEAR Act (disclose and defer).

• Max resolution: 2K
• Audio: Native audio with lip-sync
• Key feature: Multi-shot storytelling, quad-modal input, frame-level precision
• Access: China via Jimeng/Dreamina; Africa, South America, Middle East, SE Asia, and now US via CapCut/Dreamina Seedance 2.0; global via BigMotion ($35–$95/mo), LumeFlow AI, other third-party platforms
• API: Official global API paused; available via third-party integrations (fal.ai, others)
• US restrictions: Real-face image-to-video disabled; unauthorized IP generation blocked; invisible watermarks on all output
• Note: Benchmark position: moved to #2 on Artificial Analysis (T2V) as of April 10 — displaced by Alibaba HappyHorse-1.0; copyright legislative battle remains a three-way standoff (Blackburn vs. White House vs. CLEAR Act)

Grok Imagine — xAI

Best for: Speed, low-cost API, rapid iteration, social media distribution

The newest entrant to the AI video generation field, and the fastest-iterating. xAI shipped four major updates in five weeks: API launch (January 28), Grok Imagine 1.0 with 720p video and audio (February 3), Grok 4.20 (February 17), and video extension (March 2). The “Extend from Frame” feature lets users chain clips by continuing from the final frame, enabling sequences up to 30 seconds while preserving lighting, motion, and character positioning.

On April 17, 2026, xAI released Grok 4.3 Beta with native video understanding — letting Grok analyze video as a coherent temporal sequence rather than as isolated frames. The understanding capability is distinct from Grok Imagine’s generation pipeline, but the two now stack: Grok can both generate and reason about video within the same model family. No other major lab currently offers vertical integration of native generation, native understanding, and platform-scale distribution under a single subscription.

Grok Imagine’s API pricing dramatically undercuts the field. The trade-off is a 720p resolution ceiling — every other major model offers 1080p or higher. Community testing also confirms visible quality degradation after two or three chained extensions. The distribution advantage is unique: over 500 million X users have direct access. Video features are currently locked behind X Premium subscriptions.

The 1080p Grok Imagine Pro tier — telegraphed by Elon Musk for late April 2026 at an expected $30/month price point — missed its April window and slipped into May with no new public timeline from xAI. Each week it slips, the per-minute price advantage matters less and the resolution gap matters more: Veo 3.1 Lite ships 1080p at $0.08/sec, Kling 3.0 ships native 4K at the $8/month tier, Pika 2.5 ships 1080p at $8/month, and even open-source LTX-2.3 outputs true 4K. xAI’s vertical-integration thesis (generation + understanding + 500M-MAU distribution under one subscription) depends on the Pro launch closing this gap.

• Max resolution: 720p (Pro 1080p tier slipped past its late-April commitment; no new public timeline as of May 4)
• Max duration: 30 seconds (via chained extensions)
• Audio: Synchronized audio
• Key feature: Video extension from frame; dual generation modes (Quality + Speed); native video understanding (Grok 4.3 Beta); fastest iteration cycle in the industry
• Access: X Premium / SuperGrok subscription required
• API: Available ($4.20/min generated video — cheapest major model)
• Engine: Aurora autoregressive MoE model on 110,000 NVIDIA GB200 GPUs
• Next: Grok Imagine Pro (1080p) overdue past Musk’s late-April commitment; track xAI release notes for the actual ship date
• Caution: Faced regulatory scrutiny over content moderation (UK ICO, France, California AG); image editing now restricted to paid subscribers

Runway Gen-4 Turbo — Runway

Best for: Stylized content, VFX aesthetics, professional ecosystem, real-time avatars

Runway leads in non-photorealistic and stylized video — VFX-oriented aesthetics, abstract content, and artistic directions where other models default to photorealism. Gen-4 Turbo also has the most mature professional ecosystem with motion brushes, scene consistency tools, and a robust API. Runway closed a $315M Series C in February 2026 at a $5.3B valuation.

On March 9, Runway launched Characters — a real-time video agent API built on its GWM-1 world model. (Weekly Roundup — March 13, 2026) Characters generates fully conversational AI avatars from a single reference image with no fine-tuning required. The avatars sustain realistic lip-sync, facial expressions, eye contact, and gesture across extended multi-minute conversations, running at 24fps at 720p in real time. BBC and Silverside are early enterprise partners, with the API available to developers at dev.runwayml.com. Characters targets customer support, interactive training, and branded marketing experiences — a direct play for the enterprise avatar market currently led by HeyGen and Synthesia.

At NVIDIA GTC (March 17, 2026), Runway demoed a research preview of a new real-time video generation model (Weekly Roundup — March 20, 2026) running on NVIDIA Vera Rubin hardware — achieving time-to-first-frame under 100ms for HD video. The demo also revealed that Gen-4.5, Runway’s next commercial model, is being developed and tested on Vera Rubin ahead of its public release. As of April 15, 2026, Gen-4.5 is accessible to creators via Adobe Firefly’s multi-model video hub — Runway’s first major distribution beyond its own platform — even though Runway has yet to formally announce a standalone Gen-4.5 launch.

• Max resolution: 1080p (Gen-4 Turbo); 720p real-time (Characters)
• Audio: Supported
• Key features: Motion brushes, style control, API maturity; Characters real-time avatar API (GWM-1)
• Access: From $12/mo (runwayml.com); Gen-4.5 also via Adobe Firefly (Creative Cloud subscription)
• API: Most mature video generation API available; Characters API at dev.runwayml.com
• Next: Gen-4.5 in market via Firefly (April 15); real-time video model research preview on Vera Rubin hardware (sub-100ms TTF); standalone Gen-4.5 launch on runwayml.com still pending
• Note: Characters is an enterprise API product built on GWM-1, separate from the Gen-4 Turbo generation pipeline

Pika 2.5 / Pika Agents — Pika Labs

Best for: Budget-conscious creators, rapid iteration, social media content; multi-model agent orchestration via Pika Agents

The most accessible entry point to AI video generation. Pika’s strength is speed and volume — generate 20-30 variations of a concept in minutes, then refine. Features like Pikaswaps (face/object replacement) and Pikaffects (style transfer) add creative flexibility at a price point that undercuts every competitor.

On April 2, 2026, Pika launched PikaStream 1.0 — a real-time AI video engine for live agent meetings at 24fps/480p with ~1.5s speech-to-video latency and persistent identity across calls.

On April 28, 2026, Pika reintroduced its product line as Pika Agents — a multi-modal AI creative partner that orchestrates other companies’ video models from a conversational interface. The video roster includes Pika’s own model alongside ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0, Kuaishou’s Kling, MiniMax, Google’s Veo 3, and OpenAI’s Sora. On audio: ElevenLabs, MiniMax Music and Voice, OpenAI Whisper. On images: Gemini, ChatGPT Images 2, SeedDream. The agents run inside Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, X, Notion, GitHub, Figma, and a dozen other surfaces with persistent memory and personality across sessions. Functionally, Pika has built a meta-layer over the entire competitive AI media stack — including the model OpenAI just sunset on the consumer side. PikaStream 1.0 folds in as the live-avatar capability inside this broader agent product.

• Max resolution: 1080p (Pika 2.5); 480p real-time (PikaStream 1.0)
• Max duration: 42 seconds (clip); persistent for live (PikaStream)
• Audio: Supported (Pika Video native; ElevenLabs / MiniMax / OpenAI Whisper via Pika Agents)
• Key feature: Pikaswaps, Pikaffects, fast batch generation (Pika 2.5); PikaStream 1.0 for live agent video; Pika Agents for multi-model orchestration over Kling, Veo, Seedance, MiniMax, and Sora
• Access: From $8/mo (lowest entry price among major models); Pika Agents available at pika.me and across 17+ platform surfaces
• API: Available

Open-Source & Local Generation

The open-source AI video ecosystem has matured significantly, making local generation on consumer hardware a viable option for privacy-conscious creators and developers.

LTX-2.3 — Lightricks

Best for: Local/desktop generation, consumer GPU workflows, high-frame-rate output

The standout for local generation — and now significantly upgraded. Released March 2026 (Weekly Roundup — March 20, 2026), LTX-2.3 is a comprehensive rebuild of the original LTX-2: a new VAE for sharper detail, a 4× larger text connector for better prompt understanding, and an improved HiFi-GAN vocoder for cleaner native audio. The model ships alongside a dedicated desktop video editor, making the entire local pipeline accessible without a ComfyUI node graph.

Key new capabilities: native portrait mode (9:16 up to 1080×1920), last-frame interpolation for seamless clip chaining, and 24/48fps output options alongside the previous frame rates. At GDC this week, NVIDIA announced 2.5× performance gains on RTX 50 Series via NVFP4 quantization, 60% lower VRAM usage, and RTX Video Super Resolution for ComfyUI delivering 4K upscaling 30× faster than competing local alternatives. The new ComfyUI App View strips the node-graph interface into a simplified prompt-in/video-out UI for non-technical users.

• Max resolution: 4K native (true 4K, not upscaled)
• Max duration: 20 seconds
• Frame rate: Up to 50fps (24/48fps options also available)
• Audio: Native synchronized audio (improved HiFi-GAN vocoder)
• Portrait mode: Yes (9:16, up to 1080×1920)
• Hardware: Runs on GPUs with 12GB+ VRAM; optimized for RTX 50 Series (2.5× faster via NVFP4)
• Integration: ComfyUI native; standalone desktop video editor (shipped March 2026)
• License: Apache 2.0 (free for companies under $10M revenue; commercial license required above that threshold)

Wan 2.7 — Alibaba (Tongyi Lab)

Best for: Multi-task video generation with Thinking Mode, open-source flexibility

Alibaba’s Wan 2.7, released April 3, 2026 (Weekly Roundup — April 17, 2026), is a major upgrade from the 2.2 line. The headline feature is Thinking Mode — a chain-of-thought reasoning approach where the model analyzes the prompt, plans composition, then generates. This produces noticeably more coherent output with fewer artifacts than single-pass generation.

Wan 2.7 Video unifies five task types in a single model: text-to-video, image-to-video (first-frame, first-and-last-frame, audio-driven), video continuation with text guidance, reference-to-video with up to five real-person inputs, and video editing via text, reference images, or style transfer. ComfyUI added support the same day in version 0.18.5 with workflow templates for all five task types.

• Max resolution: 1080p
• Max duration: 2–15 seconds
• Task types: T2V, I2V, video continuation, reference-to-video (up to 5 persons), video editing
• Key feature: Thinking Mode (chain-of-thought reasoning before generation)
• Integration: ComfyUI 0.18.5+, Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, wan.video
• License: Open source

HappyHorse-1.0 — Alibaba ATH AI Innovation Unit

Best for: Top-ranked benchmark quality (T2V + I2V); commercial API access with joint audio-video and seven-language native lip-sync

Debuted anonymously on Artificial Analysis on April 7, 2026 (Weekly Roundup — April 11, 2026), HappyHorse-1.0 immediately ranked #1 in both text-to-video and image-to-video blind testing, surpassing Seedance 2.0. Alibaba revealed its ATH AI Innovation Unit ownership on April 10. The 15-billion-parameter model uses a unified 40-layer self-attention Transformer that generates audio and video jointly in a single forward pass — no cross-attention modules, no separate audio post-processing.

On April 27, 2026, fal launched HappyHorse-1.0 as official API partner with four endpoints (text-to-video, image-to-video, reference-to-video, video-edit) at $0.14 per second for 720p output and $0.28 per second for 1080p — pay-per-second, no minimums. Alibaba Cloud Bailian opened enterprise-grade access to its own customers the same day with full commercialization rolling out across May. The Artificial Analysis Elo continues to climb: as of May 3, T2V (no audio) sits at 1,354 — 84 points ahead of Dreamina Seedance 2.0 in second place — and I2V (no audio) at 1,392. On the audio-included T2V leaderboard the lead inverts: HappyHorse drops to #2 at Elo 1,218, two points behind Seedance 2.0 at 1,220 — essentially tied, reflecting a less mature joint audio synthesis pipeline rather than weakness in the visual output.

The open-weights story is messier. ATH’s happyhorse.me/open-source landing page describes HappyHorse-1.0 as “fully open-sourced,” but independent verification finds a public GitHub repo with no model weights, no inference code, and no license file; the Hugging Face profile remains “coming soon.” Alibaba has effectively separated commercial API access (live now) from open-weight distribution (still unscheduled). Until weights ship, treat HappyHorse-1.0 as a commercial model with an open-source promise — the API is the actual access surface today.

• Max resolution: 1080p
• Audio: Joint audio-video generation in a single forward pass; native synced output
• Lip-sync languages: 7 — English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, German, French
• Architecture: 15B-parameter unified 40-layer self-attention Transformer
• Inference speed: ~38 seconds for 1080p on a single NVIDIA H100
• Benchmark position: #1 on Artificial Analysis text-to-video (Elo 1,354) and image-to-video (Elo 1,392) as of May 3 (no-audio); #2 on audio-included T2V (Elo 1,218), near-tied with Seedance 2.0 (1,220)
• Access: API live via fal.ai ($0.14/sec 720p, $0.28/sec 1080p) and Alibaba Cloud Bailian (enterprise from April 27); open weights still pending despite ATH’s marketing claim
• API: ✓ via fal.ai (4 endpoints) and Alibaba Cloud Bailian (enterprise tier)

Other Notable Open-Source Models

• HappyHorse-1.0 (Alibaba ATH AI Innovation Unit) — Promoted to a standalone entry above. Currently #1 on Artificial Analysis T2V and I2V (no-audio leaderboards); commercial API live via fal.ai and Alibaba Cloud Bailian as of April 27, 2026; open weights still pending despite ATH marketing claims.
• SkyReels V4 (Skywork AI) — Released April 3, 2026 (Weekly Roundup — April 17, 2026). First open-source model to co-generate video and synchronized audio in a single forward pass. Dual-stream Multimodal Diffusion Transformer (MMDiT) architecture; 1080p at 32 FPS, clips up to 15 seconds. Accepts text, images, video clips, masks, and audio references. Ranked among the top models on Artificial Analysis T2V with audio leaderboard (Elo ~1,135). Free tier: 70 monthly credits on skyreels.dev; open-source weights available for local deployment
• Mochi 1 — High-fidelity short video with strong prompt alignment
• HunyuanVideo / HY-World 2.0 (Tencent) — HunyuanVideo offers solid image-to-video with coherent motion. On April 16, 2026, Tencent’s Hunyuan team released HY-World 2.0 — a multi-modal world model that generates editable 3D scenes (meshes plus Gaussian Splattings) from text prompts or single reference images, with WorldMirror 2.0 inference code and weights open-sourced (github.com/Tencent-Hunyuan/HY-World-2.0). The combination of editable 3D geometry and open weights makes HY-World 2.0 the more pipeline-friendly counterpart to Alibaba’s still-gated Happy Oyster
• Happy Oyster (Alibaba ATH) — Released April 16, 2026 (Weekly Roundup — April 17, 2026). World model that generates interactive, physics-aware 3D environments from text prompts; targets gaming, film, and VR. Directing and Wandering modes are designed for real-time exploration but don’t expose the underlying 3D representation in a standards-friendly way (unlike Tencent’s HY-World 2.0 above). Live demo accessible via Artificial Analysis arena; weights gated
• MAGI-1 — Long-form video synthesis capabilities
• Helios (Peking University / ByteDance / Canva) — 14B autoregressive diffusion model; 19.5fps real-time generation on a single NVIDIA H100; capable of minute-scale video; Apache 2.0 license. Released March 2026. Notable for real-time throughput on a single accelerator.

How to Choose: A Routing Framework

The right model depends on the shot, not the project. Here’s a practical decision framework:

Need broadcast-ready 4K? → Kling 3.0 or Veo 3.1

Need top benchmark quality with commercial API access? → HappyHorse-1.0 via fal.ai ($0.14/sec 720p, $0.28/sec 1080p) or Alibaba Cloud Bailian — #1 on Artificial Analysis T2V and I2V no-audio leaderboards; joint audio-video; seven-language native lip-sync

Need a free starting point? → Veo 3.1 via Google Vids (10 free clips/month, any Google account)

Need character consistency across shots? → Seedance 2.0 Pro via CapCut (US now available, with real-face restrictions) or Luma Ray 3.14

Need stylized / VFX aesthetic? → Runway Gen-4 Turbo

Need professional production volume at scale? → Luma Ray 3.14 (4× faster, 3× cheaper than previous Ray)

Need volume at low cost? → Pika 2.5

Need cheapest API? → Grok Imagine ($4.20/min)

Need local generation / privacy? → LTX-2.3 via ComfyUI or desktop editor

Need real-time interactive avatars? → Runway Characters (GWM-1)

Need real-time live AI video for agent meetings? → PikaStream 1.0 (24fps/480p, ~1.5s latency)

Need multi-shot narrative? → Seedance 2.0 Pro via CapCut (US, with restrictions), Luma Ray 3.14, or Kling 3.0 Omni

Need Adobe Creative Cloud integration? → Adobe Firefly multi-model hub (Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0/Omni, Runway Gen-4.5, Luma, plus 30+ others)

Need a multi-model creative agent that orchestrates Kling, Veo, Seedance, MiniMax, and Sora from a conversational interface? → Pika Agents (launched April 28, 2026) — runs across Slack, Telegram, Discord, X, Notion, Figma, and other surfaces with persistent memory

Need editable 3D world / scene generation? → Tencent HY-World 2.0 (open weights) or Alibaba Happy Oyster (gated early access)

Need massive distribution? → Grok Imagine (500M+ X users)

Most professional workflows now use 2-3 models per project, routing different shots to different engines based on the specific requirements of each scene.

What’s Coming

• Veo 4 expected at Google I/O 2026 — Google I/O runs May 19–20. Google has used I/O for major Veo announcements in both 2024 and 2025, and pre-event coverage signals a 2026 reveal. Until Google announces, treat as informed expectation; if it ships, it’s the next inflection on the photorealism + 4K + extended-narrative ceiling
• Grok Imagine Pro (1080p) — Slipped past Musk’s late-April commitment with no new public timeline as of May 4. Until it ships, Grok’s per-minute price advantage matters less and the 720p resolution gap matters more. Track xAI release notes for the actual ship date
• HappyHorse-1.0 open-source weights — ATH’s happyhorse.me/open-source landing page now describes the model as “fully open-sourced,” but independent verification finds an empty GitHub repo (no weights, no inference code, no license file) and the Hugging Face profile remains “coming soon.” The commercial API launched April 27 (via fal.ai and Alibaba Cloud Bailian); whether weights actually ship in May or “coming soon” stays the operational posture through summer is the credibility test for the rest of the rollout
• TAKE IT DOWN Act platform compliance — May 19, 2026 deadline for covered platforms to comply with notice-and-takedown obligations for intimate visual depictions and deepfakes. The April 8 first criminal conviction raises the legal profile of this deadline. Expect platform policy announcements in the run-up
• Runway Gen-4.5 — Now accessible via Adobe Firefly’s multi-model hub (April 15, 2026); standalone Gen-4.5 launch on runwayml.com still pending. Previewed on NVIDIA Vera Rubin hardware at GTC (March 2026); expected to be Runway’s highest-performance commercial model to date
• NVIDIA Vera Rubin cloud deployment — AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and OCI all confirmed H2 2026 availability. Vera Rubin delivers 10× lower inference token cost versus Blackwell — the number that will reshape per-second AI video pricing across all major cloud platforms
• DLSS 5 — NVIDIA’s neural rendering technology, launching Fall 2026. Explicitly positioned for filmmaking and VFX beyond gaming; uses generative AI to infuse photoreal lighting and materials anchored to source 3D geometry
• Blackburn draft AI bill — GOP Senate draft (March 19, 2026) declares AI training on copyrighted works not fair use; targets deepfakes and Section 230. Not yet introduced as legislation; path to passage uncertain
• White House AI framework vs. CLEAR Act — White House (March 2026) takes the opposite position from Blackburn: AI training is not infringement; courts should decide. Bipartisan CLEAR Act (Schiff/Curtis) proposes mandatory training data disclosure without resolving fair use. Three irreconcilable positions now active in Washington simultaneously
• Seedance 2.0 copyright litigation — US CapCut access now live (April 2026) with real-face and IP restrictions, but the underlying copyright dispute with Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros., and Netflix remains unresolved. The restrictions are a negotiating posture, not a settlement
• OpenAI robotics / world simulation — OpenAI redirected Sora’s compute toward “world simulation for robotics” after shutting the product down. The consumer app went dark on April 26, 2026 as scheduled; the Sora API remains accessible until September 24, 2026. Watch for whether any video-adjacent capability resurfaces inside ChatGPT before that deadline
• Adobe Firefly multi-model expansion — Firefly’s video hub now hosts 30+ third-party AI models including Kling 3.0/Omni, Veo 3.1, Runway Gen-4.5, ElevenLabs Multilingual v2, Luma AI, Black Forest Labs, and Topaz Labs. Firefly AI Assistant orchestrates multi-step workflows across Photoshop, Premiere, Lightroom, Express, and Illustrator. Watch for additional model integrations and any model labs that opt to remain Firefly-exclusive
• Tencent vs. Alibaba 3D world model race — Two of China’s largest AI labs shipped 3D world models on the same day, April 16 (Alibaba’s Happy Oyster, gated; Tencent’s HY-World 2.0, open weights). Western labs have nothing comparable in production; the 6-to-12 month head start is real if world simulation matters as much as OpenAI’s Sora-shutdown framing implied
• Google Vids / Workspace expansion — YouTube export is now live; paid creative tiers (Pro/Ultra) now include Lyria 3 music generation and AI avatars. Further Workspace AI integration expected throughout 2026
• EU AI Act Article 50 — August 2026, requiring machine-readable metadata on all AI-generated content
• Unlimited-length AI video — EPFL’s drift elimination breakthrough (presenting at ICLR 2026) could remove the duration ceiling entirely
• xAI targeting 30-minute video — Announced goal for late 2026, with full-length films targeted for 2027

This page is maintained by RCTV as a public reference. For weekly updates on model releases and industry shifts, see our Weekly Roundup.

Have a correction or update? Contact us at rctv.oxncw@simplelogin.com

CHANGELOG

• 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