Runway is an applied AI research company building the next generation of systems that understand, simulate, and generate the visual world. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in New York City, Runway develops frontier multimodal AI models that move beyond traditional filmmaking tools toward the creation of dynamic, interactive, and intelligent visual realities.

At its core, Runway is focused on building world simulation models - AI systems capable of learning how the world looks, moves, and behaves, and then generating new visual experiences from that understanding. These models form the foundation for a new class of creative and computational systems that blur the line between film, games, simulation, and real-time digital environments.

Runway’s research spans video, image, motion, performance, and interaction, enabling creators and developers to generate not just content, but entire visual systems. From consistent characters and environments to coherent motion, physics, and behavior across scenes, Runway’s models allow ideas to be explored, tested, and evolved at unprecedented speed and scale.

While Runway’s technology has already been used in award-winning films and global productions - including Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert - the company’s ambition extends far beyond film and post-production. These early applications represent only the first step toward a broader future where visual worlds can be designed, simulated, and experienced dynamically.

Through successive generations of breakthrough systems - from Gen-1 and Gen-2, among the first text-to-video models, to Gen-3 and Gen-4, which introduced persistent characters, environments, and temporal coherence - Runway has steadily advanced toward more holistic world modeling. New products such as Act-One, Act-Two, and Game Worlds further push this vision, enabling performance-driven storytelling, interaction, and simulation across mediums.

Runway’s long-term mission is to build general world models: AI systems that can reason about, simulate, and generate complex visual realities. This positions Runway not simply as a creative software company, but as a foundational platform for how films, games, simulations, and digital worlds will be created and experienced in the future.

Backed by leading global investors including General Atlantic, Google, NVIDIA, Salesforce, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Fidelity, and Baillie Gifford, Runway has reached a valuation exceeding $3 billion and was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Companies.

Runway in Three

What problem is Runway solving?

Runway addresses the limitations of traditional content creation by enabling AI systems that can understand and simulate the visual world, allowing creators and developers to explore ideas, environments, and narratives without the constraints of time, cost, or physical production.

What’s innovative about Runway?

Runway builds proprietary multimodal world simulation models that go beyond content generation - enabling coherent motion, persistent environments, performance transfer, interaction, and the foundations of general world modeling.

Who is Runway for?

Creators, studios, developers, researchers, and organizations building the future of film, games, media, simulation, and interactive digital worlds.