On Monday Runway announced Solaris, “the first model in a new family of AI systems” which it calls “Interface World Models”. Back in February, Runway raised $315 million in Series E funding at a $5.3 billion valuation to “pre-train the next generation of world models and bring them to new products and industries.” This is its first market-facing world model.
Runway first generated headlines two years ago for its partnership with Lionsgate, promising to build a new, custom AI model that the studio can use in the editing and production process in exchange for access to Lionsgate’s content library. That partnership hit a wall, as reported by “The Wrap” last September: A model requires “as much data as possible for it to understand context and then to render the right frames, human musculature, physics, lighting and other elements of any given shot”. Lionsgate did not have enough and copyright concerns created a long list of other issues.
Instead of responding by rethinking and streamlining the production process with AI tools, Runway pivoted. Solaris is a screen interface that draws software as you use it. The examples in the Solaris announcement—retail (clothing), restaurant (building a salad), and science (an interactive demonstration of combustion)—are not traditional media.
This contrasts with the emergence of AI tools in pre-production, editing and VFX. If everyone actually wants a new layer rather than better tools, those strategies are aimed at the wrong problem—and the company building the layer is not in the film business at all.
In April 2025, I outlined Fable Studios founder Edward Saatchi’s vision for platforms like Runway and Showrunner in Hollywood. Runway’s tools could be used to “pre-visualize” an entire film. Production executives would watch this pre-visualization, and pre-production would become an interactive process. We are seeing studios fold AI tools into pre-production, editing and VFX.
Runway’s pivot suggests that the thing these true AI visionaries foresee in entertainment requires a new layer rather than better tools.
