AI video · as of 24 October 2026 · prompts to copy

AI video

Which AI for video by task, what each one can do and how to write instructions so exactly what you want moves. Video models change fast, which is why the overview has a date.

🧭 Which AI for what

Based on what you want to do. The information is from the makers' help pages and announcements. Where it's only from articles, it says so.

📱 The easiest start
Gemini Omni in the Gemini app. A 10-second video with sound from a description or from up to 5 photos, which you edit in several steps, and the scene can be extended. You need a Google AI subscription and to be 18.
🎞️ A longer clip and a story
Seedance 2.5 from ByteDance in CapCut. Up to 30 s in one clip and up to 50 references at once (images, video, sound, text). In Europe for subscribers aged 16 and over.
🎭 Dialogue, a longer clip and precise control
Kling 4.0 (since 15 October 2026). A 3–30 s clip up to 4K, stereo sound and speech, up to 10 keyframes and 15 references at once (images, videos, voices). It doesn't speak every language: it does English, German, French, Spanish or Chinese, for example.
🏆 The best picture
Wan 3.0 from Alibaba. First in the Artificial Analysis leaderboard. Up to 30 s according to articles. So far only via Alibaba Cloud and for members on wan.video, the hardest to get for everyday use.
⚡ A quick video from an image
Grok Imagine. Up to 15 s, only in paid SuperGrok. Prompts for Grok are on the AI images page.
✂️ Editing a finished video
MiniMax H3 in the Hailuo app. Up to 15 s with stereo sound in 2K, takes text, an image, video and sound at once. According to articles it's the best at editing video.
🗣️ A scene with sound, free to try
HeyGen Video. Picture, speech and sound effects in one step. Free to try with 2 five-second clips a day, longer ones in the HeyGen app. Talking avatars are a different product at HeyGen.
🎬 Film and series production
Utopai X from Utopai Studios. Second in the Artificial Analysis leaderboard, built on MiniMax H3. According to articles, only in the paid PAI platform, from $15 a month.
🛠️ Pro tools
Runway Gen-4.5. Since December 2025, 2–10 s clips from a description and from an image. Runway has already discontinued the older Gen-3.
🧪 For developers
FLUX 3 from Black Forest Labs. Up to 20 s with sound according to articles. So far only via the API as a preview; it has no app for regular people.
🧰 Lots of models in one app
Higgsfield. Over 30 video and image models in one place (for example Kling 4.0, Seedance 2.5, Veo 3.1, Nano Banana Pro) and its own Genjutsu for transferring motion onto your characters and products. Web and mobile, only a few free tries. Careful: in early 2026 people complained about unexpected charges and difficult subscription cancellation; annual plans renew automatically. The model line-up changes — in October it still listed Sora, which has already shut down.
🏠 At home, without the cloud
Wan 2.2 (Apache 2.0 licence, 720p, 5 s of video in under 9 minutes on a 24 GB graphics card) or LTX-2.5 (does sound too, free even commercially for companies under $10M annual revenue). MiniMax H3 has had open weights since 3 August 2026, but with 33 billion parameters it's a model for a powerful server. They're most often run through ComfyUI.

For the images and photos you'll make a video from, see the AI images page. For texts and the script, Which AI for what.

🔢 Model overview

As of 24 October 2026. Length is the longest clip in one step; some can go longer by extending.

ModelCompanyClip lengthSoundWhere to find it
Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash Google 10 s Yes The Gemini app, with a Google AI subscription
Seedance 2.5 ByteDance Up to 30 s Yes CapCut, for subscribers
Kling 4.0 Kuaishou 3–30 s Yes, stereo, dialogue too kling.ai
Wan 3.0 Alibaba Up to 30 s (according to articles) Yes Alibaba Cloud, wan.video for members
MiniMax H3 MiniMax Up to 15 s Yes, stereo The Hailuo app, open weights
Utopai X Utopai Studios Not stated by the maker Yes The PAI platform
HeyGen Video HeyGen 5 s to try, longer in the app Yes, speech too HeyGen
Grok Imagine Video 1.5 xAI Up to 15 s Yes (according to articles) Grok, SuperGrok only
FLUX 3 Black Forest Labs Up to 20 s (according to articles) Yes API, preview
Runway Gen-4.5 Runway 2–10 s Not stated by the maker Runway
LTX-2.5 Lightricks Depends on the settings Yes At home on your own graphics card
Wan 2.2 Alibaba 5 s — At home, a 24 GB graphics card

The Artificial Analysis leaderboard (video with sound, blind voting): 1. Wan 3.0, 2. Utopai X, 3. HeyGen Video, 4. MiniMax H3, 5. Seedance 2.5. Other leaderboards rank differently; on llm-stats, for example, Kling 3.0 was still in the lead. The new Kling 4.0 came out on 15 October 2026 and isn't in the leaderboards yet. Prices aren't here, they change the fastest.

⛔ What has ended or changed

  • OpenAI's Sora has shut down. The app on 26 April 2026, the API on 24 September 2026. Videos you downloaded stay yours.
  • Veo in the Gemini app has been replaced by Gemini Omni.
  • Runway Gen-3 has ended; its successor is Gen-4.5.
  • Kling has a new version 4.0 since 15 October 2026 (longer clips, 4K, more references).
  • Luma Dream Machine keeps running with the Ray3 series models, but it isn't in the Artificial Analysis top fifteen in October 2026.

🎬 How to write a video prompt

Describe the shot like a director:
  • What's in the shot and how close (wide, medium, close-up).
  • What moves and how fast. Write the character's movement and the camera's movement separately.
  • Light and setting.
  • What can be heard: sound effects, music, or explicitly “no music”.
  • For a video from an image, describe only the movement. The look is already in the image; say that it should stay.
  • Write several shots in order and with timings (0–4 s, 4–8 s…).
  • Dialogue: for every line, write who says it and how, and in what language.
  • Set the length and aspect ratio in the app when you can. Otherwise write them into the instructions.

📋 Prompts to copy

Replace the yellow parts in square brackets with your own. The labels show where the prompt works best.

One shot from a description Any model
Video [8 s], [16:9].

Shot: [a medium shot of an old man in the rain under a street lamp].
Action: [he slowly lights a cigarette, raindrops run down his face].
Camera: [a slow push-in towards the face].
Setting and light: [a street at night, neon reflections in puddles, light mist].
Sound: [rain, a distant car, no music].
Style: real video, natural movement.
A video from a photo Gemini OmniKlingSeedanceGrok
Bring this photo to life. Keep the look, the face and the clothes exactly as in the photo.

Character movement: [slowly opens her eyes and looks into the camera, blinks naturally].
Movement around: [the wind gently ruffles her hair, dust floats in the background].
Camera: [static / a very slow push-in].
Sound: [a quiet wind].
Several shots with timings KlingSeedance
A [12 s] video from three shots, the same character in all of them: [a girl in a red jacket with a bike].

Shot 1 (0–4 s): [wide, the girl rides out of the garage, morning, fog]. The camera is static.
Shot 2 (4–8 s): [a close-up of the pedals and the wheel on the wet road]. The camera moves alongside the bike.
Shot 3 (8–12 s): [a medium-wide shot from behind, the girl disappears over the hill]. The camera slowly rises.

Sound: [the clicking chain, drops, birds, no music].
A dialogue between two characters KlingGemini OmniHeyGen
A [10 s] video, [medium shot], two people at a kitchen table, evening, warm lamp light.

0–4 s: Mum (quietly, surprised, [in English]): “[You did this?]”
4–8 s: Boy (proudly, smiling, [in English]): “[All by myself.]”
8–10 s: the camera slowly pulls back, silence, only a ticking clock.

Sound: a quiet kitchen, no music.

Kling speaks only some languages. Write the line in quotation marks in the language the character should speak. With other models, test your language on a short clip first.

The same character across several clips KlingSeedanceMiniMax H3
Character: images 1, 2 and 3 are the same character [from the front, in profile and full-length]. Keep the face, hairstyle and clothes exactly.

Clip: [the character walks into a café and looks around].
Camera: [follows her from behind, over the shoulder].
Light: [morning, warm].
Sound: [the ring of the door bell, the hum of the café].
Editing a finished video Gemini OmniMiniMax H3Grok
Edit this video. Change only [the light and colours: turn the day into early evening with a sunset].

Keep the people's movement, the camera, the cuts, the length and the sound.
Don't add new objects, text or logos.
A vertical product video SeedanceKlingGemini Omni
A product video [8 s], vertical 9:16, for [Reels].

Product: image 1, [a perfume bottle]. Keep the shape, colour and label exactly.
Scene: [the bottle stands on a wet black stone, steam slowly rises around it].
Camera: [a slow arc around the bottle from left to right].
Light: [a dark studio, one soft source from behind, reflections on the glass].
Sound: [a quiet deep tone, a drop of water at the end].
No text or logos except the label on the product.
Transfer the motion from a video to your character HiggsfieldKling
Image 1 is my character: [a girl in a red jacket]. Video 1 shows the movement I want: [a dance step / walking up stairs].

Transfer the movement from video 1 onto the character from image 1.
From the character, keep the face, hairstyle and clothes exactly. From the video, take only the movement and the rhythm, not the look of the person in the video.
Setting: [a rooftop at sunset].
Camera: [the same as in video 1 / static].
Sound: [no music, just footsteps].

Film the movement video yourself or use one you have the rights to. Don't use a character from someone else's photo without consent.

🧩 For advanced users: ComfyUI

When you want every step under control, or want to run models at home on your own graphics card.

What it is: ComfyUI is free and open source (GPL-3.0 licence). Instead of one window with a prompt, you build nodes on a canvas: model → individual steps → output. You see every step and can change it. It does video, images, sound and 3D, and models like Wan 2.2, LTX, HunyuanVideo, Flux or Qwen-Image. There are over 60,000 community nodes.
  • How to start: download the Comfy Desktop app for Windows and macOS at comfy.org. Without a strong graphics card, try Comfy Cloud; it's paid and has a free trial. Start from a ready-made template, not from an empty canvas.
  • Graphics card: according to the authors, even big models run from 4 GB VRAM and 8 GB RAM, just more slowly. The official Wan 2.2 model card counts on 24 GB.
  • Safety: community nodes (custom nodes) are someone else's code running on your computer. Install only ones with public source code and many users, not from links in discussions.
Let AI design a ComfyUI workflow for you ClaudeChatGPTGrok
In ComfyUI I want to [make a short video from a photo with a slow camera push-in].
My computer: [Windows, an RTX 4070 graphics card with 12 GB, 32 GB RAM].

Design a workflow: which models to download (with a link to the official page), which nodes to connect and in what order, and what settings to start with.
If it won't fit my graphics card, say so straight away and suggest a smaller model or Comfy Cloud.
For every community node, say where it's from, so I download it only from a verified source.
Analysing an error in ComfyUI ClaudeChatGPTGrok
My workflow in ComfyUI ends with an error. Here's the message from the console:

<error>
[paste the whole error message]
</error>

My computer: [Windows, RTX 4070 12 GB, 32 GB RAM]. Workflow: [a video from an image with the Wan 2.2 model].
Explain in one sentence what went wrong. Then give the steps to fix it, starting with the simplest option.
If the cause can't be told from the message, say what else I should find out.

🎥 Camera movement

Terms that video models know. Use them in your prompt as they are.

A glossary of camera moves Any model
- Static camera: static shot, locked-off camera
- A pan left or right: slow pan from left to right
- A push-in towards the character: slow dolly in on the face
- A pull-back that reveals the surroundings: camera pulls back to reveal the city
- Following the character: tracking shot, camera follows the subject from behind
- An arc around the character: camera slowly orbits around the subject
- A drone over the landscape: aerial drone shot over the forest, top-down view
- Handheld, documentary style: handheld camera, slight shake, documentary style

🛡️ Real people and other people's content

  • Someone else's face only with consent. Don't animate photos of real people without their consent. Seedance explicitly forbids unauthorised use of someone else's likeness, and authorities are investigating Grok over deepfakes.
  • Age: Gemini Omni is 18+, Seedance in CapCut 16+.
  • Don't put other people's music, logos and film characters into a video when you don't have the rights to them.