5 Text-To-Video AI Tools You Should Know About

Anyone can soon become the next Scorsese or Spielberg without any filmmaking experience.

That’s the promise many companies behind AI video generator tools are making. But how good are these text-to-video tools today? Are they powerful enough to produce a high-quality, full-fledged movie?

In this article, I’m going to share five text-to-video AI tools that are worth checking out:

1. Stable Video Diffusion
2. Runway ML
3. Pika Labs
4. Emu Video
5. Canva AI Video

Let’s get started.

Stable Video Diffusion

Stable Video Diffusion is the latest model released by Stability AI, the startup behind the popular open-source AI image generator, Stable Diffusion. It takes an image or text prompt as input and outputs a smooth, multi-frame video clip that’s up to 4 seconds long.

The interpolation between frames appears to be remarkably fluid.

SVD is still in research preview because it is not yet intended for real-world applications. Those eager to experiment can join the waitlist here, but a release date for wider access is still unknown. You can also download the model and run it on your local machine.

Runway ML

Runway Gen2 was released in July 2023 and has been the go-to AI video generator tool for many creators. It can generate a four-second video with either a text or an image input.

Here are sample video I generated with a free account.

A monthly subscription costs $15 per month, which gives you the following benefits:

• Upscale resolution
• Remove watermarks
• Shorter wait times
• 125 seconds of video

There’s also a Pro tier available for either $28 or $35 per month, which provides you with more credits.

Pika 1.0

Pika Labs has recently released Pika 1.0, their latest AI video model. Currently, there’s no dedicated front-end app to try the tool, but it can be accessed through the Discord bot.

Pika 1.0 will include the following features:

• Text-to-Video and Image-to-Video
• Video-to-Video: Transform your existing videos into different styles, including different characters and objects
• Expand: Expand the canvas or aspect ratio of a video
• Change: Edit video content with AI, such as changing someone’s clothing, adding in another character, or changing the environment
• Extend: Extend the length of an existing video

Here are some sample videos I generated:

If you want to know more details and updates on Pika, check out their X and Product Hunt pages.

Emu Video

Meta has recently joined the AI video party with the release of its own AI model called EMU video, which stands for Expressive Media Universe.

The model is trained on the largest dataset of its kind—10 million synthesized samples with an input image, task description, and target output image. This makes it the largest dataset of its kind to date.

Right now, Emu Video is fundamental research and is not a real product yet. Meta has released a demo website here for you to check out a collection of videos generated by Emu Video.

Canva AI Video

Canva has recently added an AI tool that can generate videos from simple text descriptions. This new text-to-video feature is part of the Magic Studio that Canva launched recently, which is a collection of AI-powered tools to improve your productivity.

The tool is powered by Runway ML’s Gen2 technology, so you can expect similar results with Runway ML’s sample videos above.

A few things to keep in mind

• You get 50 generation credits that reset monthly. Each video generation is equivalent to one credit.
• This is still an experimental technology, so the people or animals you see on the video may not look right.
• You have to be a Canva Pro user to access the text-to-video feature. Canva Pro is 5 USD per month or 40 USD per year.

Note: Some of the tools listed here are still experimental, so the quality of the videos generated may vary. Also, this article is not sponsored by any of the AI companies on the list.

Final Thoughts

These tools, capable of producing high-quality videos from mere text descriptions or images, hold immense potential to democratize storytelling and empower individuals to create video content without any technical expertise.

While the quality of the videos generated by the tools above is still distant from a Hollywood level, I could say that the AI video revolution has begun.

The question of whether these tools diminish human creativity or simply augment it remains open. Remember…

“And when everyone’s super, no one will be.”

What’s worth celebrating, though, is the ingenuity behind these technological breakthroughs, recognizing the remarkable strides we, as humans, have made in harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to enhance our creative expression.

I hope you find the list interesting, and if you know any other awesome video generator tools that didn’t make it to the list, please let me know in the comments.