The Information's TITV
00:23:40 · Akash Pasricha, Bing Gordon
[00:23:40] S0: I mean, so the execution... I mean, this is actually the next thing I wanted to ask you about, is if you look at the execution of these PE companies, certainly there was the EA deal. Now we have the reports that Silver Lake and PIF are looking at. Unity is another report that we've seen come up. So I I guess I'm I'm less curious about whether or not you think these deals are going happen. I'm more curious about what you think these PE firms should do with the gaming businesses to materially change the trajectory that they couldn't have done maybe as a public company, or what would you do? [00:24:15] S2: Well, EA... You know, I kind of joke about EA, I haven't gone a long time, but EA will see what happens. That's going to be kind of a bell cow. By going private, does it get inventive again or have they just gotten a habit of being risk averse and only sequelaing ten year, fifteen year old franchises? In theory, you know, EA going private could make us nimble and make us creative. So we'll see, I'm a fan of the leadership there, I've seen them be highly creative and inventive, but they've been not very highly creative and inventive for a while now. So there always is a question of, you know, why do you go like this and say, thanks, needed that. Now I'm going to get back to my youthful self. And so if they can get back to their youthful self, the PE people are going to be unable to go hire new talent. So if they can go back to their youthful selves, it could be a home run.
00:24:15 · Bing Gordon, Akash Pasricha, Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz
[00:24:15] S2: Well, EA... You know, I kind of joke about EA, I haven't gone a long time, but EA will see what happens. That's going to be kind of a bell cow. By going private, does it get inventive again or have they just gotten a habit of being risk averse and only sequelaing ten year, fifteen year old franchises? In theory, you know, EA going private could make us nimble and make us creative. So we'll see, I'm a fan of the leadership there, I've seen them be highly creative and inventive, but they've been not very highly creative and inventive for a while now. So there always is a question of, you know, why do you go like this and say, thanks, needed that. Now I'm going to get back to my youthful self. And so if they can get back to their youthful self, the PE people are going to be unable to go hire new talent. So if they can go back to their youthful selves, it could be a home run. [00:25:22] S0: Great. Well, Bing, I want to thank you for coming on. That is Bing Gordon, author of Everybody Wins, here on TITV. Last week, AI media and tech company Every brought together some of the biggest names in AI for its annual thesis conference. We were there to sit down with leaders from OpenAI, Microsoft, and Runway. We shared a few of those interviews on Friday, and today we're bringing you more highlights from the event. Let's take a look. I'm here with Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz, the co founder and chief innovation officer of Runway. Alejandro, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here. [00:26:01] S3: Thank you. It's great to be here.
00:26:01 · Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz, Akash Pasricha
[00:26:01] S3: Thank you. It's great to be here. [00:26:03] S0: Okay. So we've been talking a lot about agents here today on the ground. You're in the business of video. Does video have a place in the world of agents? I mean, walk me through how you think about this. [00:26:14] S3: Yeah. Of course. So at Runway, have our own creative agents. We just released Call Agent 2.0. It's it's the... It's to our to to our judgment. It's the best creative agent in... Out there in the market. You can create from advertising to films to conceptualize ideas for any different kind of like creative use case. And we also have connections connectors through MCPs with all of the other agents out there. You can use the Runway in many different ways through our existing kind of, like, product and also through the agent or other agents out there that can [00:26:53] S0: But you guys... I mean, you've also been playing with, I think, is it live video models? Is that right? [00:26:59] S3: Yes. We have been experimenting a lot with real time video models with real time video avatars. So you have avatars that can, you can speak to them and you can, they can interact to, to what you are asking them to do. Right. So instead of just having a text layer or an audio layer, you also can have a visual layer that can transform into a character or or or or someone that is replying to you in real time.
00:26:59 · Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz, Akash Pasricha
[00:26:59] S3: Yes. We have been experimenting a lot with real time video models with real time video avatars. So you have avatars that can, you can speak to them and you can, they can interact to, to what you are asking them to do. Right. So instead of just having a text layer or an audio layer, you also can have a visual layer that can transform into a character or or or or someone that is replying to you in real time. [00:27:23] S0: Right. So walk me through then what the sort of vision is that you have for Runway three years from now. Because I think... As I think about the history of the company, I mean, you know, I think I always sort of thought of you as the the Hollywood focused AI video company, and then you kind of expanded into more of a platform play, you know, more of an aggregator model. You're here today to talk about world models, and so I I see the aperture getting wider and wider. Where do you want to focus on three years from now? What what should we know Runway as?
00:27:23 · Akash Pasricha, Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz
[00:27:23] S0: Right. So walk me through then what the sort of vision is that you have for Runway three years from now. Because I think... As I think about the history of the company, I mean, you know, I think I always sort of thought of you as the the Hollywood focused AI video company, and then you kind of expanded into more of a platform play, you know, more of an aggregator model. You're here today to talk about world models, and so I I see the aperture getting wider and wider. Where do you want to focus on three years from now? What what should we know Runway as? [00:27:58] S3: Yeah. So when we started the company, we started with this idea of allowing anyone in the world to create a feature film using AI. That was meant for creatives, that was a very crazy idea in 2018. I think the the world move on, I think we have more tools, we have more system, we have an ecosystem of tools which you can now create these kind of outputs and and we are still serving that industry, the creative industry, we're still working with Hollywood studios, with advertising agencies, with creative shops, and we're helping them tell the stories that they want to to tell. As we develop our tools and our models, we discovered or we learned that these models were going to be far more capable than we anticipated for. So instead of just using them for creating videos for things that people wanna watch, these videos can be used to train robots to learn how about they wanna perform specific things in the physical world. [00:28:53] S0: Mhmm.
00:28:53 · Akash Pasricha, Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz
[00:28:53] S0: Mhmm. [00:28:53] S3: So as as an external eye, this might look like two different spaces, like the creative space and robotics, but for us, it's the same underlying technologies. Like, are creating models that produce videos, and in some cases, videos are good for people to watch, and in some other cases, are good for machines to watch. So we want to continue on that on on that research effort, and we want to simulate the world entirely, not not purely on the visual aspects. And we we think there is three buckets in which we can apply this kind of, research. One is still in media and entertainment. If we can create better scenes through wormholes, we can use them for making better, bigger, more ambitious films. We can also use it for robotics to train the next generation of robotics to learn how they will work in the physical world. And the third bucket, which is a little bit more experimental today, is for gaming and real time interactive immersive experiences or interfaces. So you can use these modes to kind of create game environments or other environments where where you where you can use them for onboarding tasks, for training tasks, or for or for interfaces as we know them today. [00:30:00] S0: So you you run Runway Labs, which is the innovation arm for Runway. So you work on research and initiatives in all three of those three buckets. Is that right?