Almost overnight, AI-generated video went from novelty to creative tool, and runway has a front-row seat. The New York-based company has raised nearly $860 million at a $5.3 billion valuation, and its model will go head-to-head with some of the world’s best-funded research labs, including Google and OpenAI.
This technology goes far beyond creating videos. Runway is now branching out into general world models with applications to games, robotics, and perhaps something closer to general intelligence.
In this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, host Rebecca Bellan speaks with Runway co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela about the future direction of video generation and why Runway’s ambitions extend far beyond Hollywood.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
Why Valenzuela thinks technology has never been a real constraint on filmmaking, and what changes when it becomes it Does Runway think about the world model differently than Google and other research institutions built in the field? What does “nonlinear media” mean, and why real-time video generation opens up use cases far beyond content creation? Why Valenzuela rejects the idea that AI companions are “inherently dystopian”
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