New Delhi: The AI startup Runway might have a few users who don’t even know about this AI startup. It has recently launched its latest Gen 4.5 model, and the company is claiming that its video generation capabilities outperform rival models from industry giants like Google and OpenAI in an independent benchmark. Runway, a company that specialises in AI video research and modelling and is backed by SoftBank, stated that its latest model enables users to generate high-definition videos from written prompts, demonstrating a superior grasp of physics, human motion, camera movements, and cause and effect sequences.
Introducing our new frontier video model, Runway Gen-4.5. Previously known as Whisper Thunder (aka) David.
Gen-4.5 is state-of-the-art and sets a new standard for video generation motion quality, prompt adherence and visual fidelity.
Learn more below. pic.twitter.com/2J945S4bQt
— Runway (@runwayml) December 1, 2025
According to some sources, it has been suggested that the startup cites an independent AI benchmarking and analysis company, Artificial Analysis, for its bold claim, stating that its Gen 4.5 immediately secured the top spot on the company’s Video Arena leaderboard. The rankings are determined through blind comparisons where the users vote for their preferred output without knowing which company generated the video. The results place Google’s Veo 3 model in second place, and OpenAI’s Sora 2 Pro model significantly lower in seventh place.
Runway CEO framed the achievement as a David-versus-Goliath victory. They managed to outcompete trillion-dollar companies with a team of 100 people. Users can get to frontiers just by being extremely focused and diligent; nothing that Gen 4.5 was codenamed David internally. It is a an exciting moment in time where the era of efficiency and research is upon the company. The Gen 4.5 model is rolling out gradually and is expected to be available to all of Runway’s customers by the end of the week.
