5 AI Video Generators You Can Use Right Now

On 9 December, 2024, OpenAI finally released Sora, its AI model for video generation. First teased the previous February, Sora was by far the year’s most anticipated video generator. After all, OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the most popular AI chatbot on the planet, and Dall-E is among the best image generators. If anyone could set a new high bar, surely it would be OpenAI?

But the release of Sora fell short of expectations.

“We were so hyped up for Sora. Then when it came out, we were all like ‘hmm…I’m not so sure.’ The other tools caught up,” said Chrissie Cremers, co-founder of Aigency Amsterdam. She’s hopeful the tool will live up to OpenAI’s reputation for updating models frequently. For now, though, Sora is frustratingly inconsistent.

The reasons for its inconsistency relate to broader problems that challenge most generative AI systems. Video generators, like image generators, typically use a diffusion model trained to create an image from random noise. But video generators face the added hurdle of generating a series of images and presenting them in a sequence. That requires deeper knowledge about how the world works.

Sora’s video quality looks good at a glance but rarely makes sense in motion.OpenAI

Consider a game of baseball. Does the pitcher throw the ball towards home plate, or does the batter throw it at the pitcher’s mound? Though it’s a simple question for anyone familiar with the sport, answering it also requires an intuitive understanding of linear time and real-world physics that video generators find difficult. And so when an AI makes a video of a baseball play, maybe the catcher throws the pitch, or maybe the ball is thrown before the pitcher moves. Or maybe the ball screams at unreal speed in a random direction.

While Sora didn’t live up to expectations, OpenAI’s competitors didn’t sit still in 2024, and many released both new foundation models and new features. These include models that provide higher-resolution outputs, lip-syncing of virtual characters, and fun visual effects. Here are five generators that you can start tinkering with right now.

Runway’s Act One can create AI generated videos based on an actor’s performance.Runway.ai

Runway released its first foundation video generation model in 2023 and immediately established itself as a go-to option for creatives. Its strength is the visual quality of is generation in shorter shots with slow motion. Like Sora, it can struggle with fast motion but does better when asked to generate slow, cinematic shots of static or slow-moving objects.

The company also has an impressive video-to-video tool called Act One. Designed for “expressive character performances,” it converts video of an actor’s real-world performance into an AI animated character. Ross Symons, co-founder of creative AI company ZenRobot, said Runway is “very…