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    AI Models

    New AI video releases: Veo, Kling, Wan

    Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0, Hailuo 2.3, Runway Gen-4.5, PixVerse V6, and open-source Wan 2.7 are the routing map. Free Sora ended. Veo 4 is not announced.

    Versely Team••11 min read

    Mid-2026 AI video models matter less as a scoreboard and more as a routing map. Sora is gone. Veo 3.1, Kling 3, and a few open or mid-tier options now cover most creator jobs. This roundup is what changed since spring, not a hype list.

    Here's the honest mid-year state of things — what shipped, what regressed, and what to actually use as of May 2026.

    What changed since the last roundup

    Four real shifts to internalize before you re-tool:

    1. Audio-native is now the table stakes. Sora 2, VEO 3.1, Kling 3.0 and PixVerse V6 all generate synchronized dialogue, foley and music in a single pass. If your current model still requires a separate ElevenLabs round-trip for voice, you're paying double and losing lip-sync fidelity.
    2. The Chinese stack caught up — and in some cases passed. Kling 3.0 (Kuaishou) and Hailuo 2.3 (MiniMax) both rank ahead of VEO 3 on Artificial Analysis's video Elo, and Wan 2.7 is the strongest open-source release ever shipped.
    3. Sora 2 went paid-only. Free Sora generation ended on January 10, 2026 (Apiyi). If you were running unpaid pipelines, they broke months ago.
    4. VEO 4 is still vapor. Despite a flood of "Veo 4 release date" SEO content, Google DeepMind has not announced an official Veo 4 model page or API ID as of April 2026 (Quest Studio). Plan around 3.1.

    Versely path

    Treat this page as a change log, then generate the next shot in AI video generator instead of juggling four vendor tabs. Use the use-case table below to pick the first model, A/B a second only on hero shots, and assemble in AI movie maker when you need multi-scene. Free local utilities stay under free tools.

    Sora 2 (OpenAI — September 2025, still flagship)

    Sora 2 is the model that forced everyone else to ship audio. Officially announced on September 30, 2025, it pairs synchronized dialogue, sound effects and ambient noise with sharper physics than Sora 1 — basketballs that miss the rim now rebound instead of teleporting through it (OpenAI).

    The hard numbers:

    • Duration: 10–25 seconds per clip
    • Resolution: 720p (Sora 2) or up to 1024p via API / 1080p via subscription (Sora 2 Pro)
    • API pricing: $0.10/sec at 720p, $0.30/sec for Pro 720p, $0.50/sec for Pro 1024p (WaveSpeed)
    • Subscription: ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo, 480p unlimited) or ChatGPT Pro ($200/mo, 10,000 credits up to 1080p)
    • Disney partnership: licensed character generation now permitted in custom scenarios

    Where it wins: Physical realism, comedy timing, "self-insertion cameos" via the Sora iOS app, and any prompt where momentum and physics matter (sports, slapstick, stunts). The system card emphasizes steerability — Sora 2 follows multi-shot direction better than any Western competitor.

    Where it loses: Cost. At $0.50/sec a 25-second 1024p clip is $12.50. A Hailuo 02 clip at the same length is roughly $0.70. Also: 25 seconds is the hard cap. There is no scene-extension feature.

    VEO 3.1 (Google DeepMind — January 13, 2026)

    VEO 3.1 was the January launch that closed the dialogue gap. The headline feature is Ingredients to Video: upload up to three reference images (a character, a location, a prop) plus a prompt, and VEO weaves them into a coherent clip while keeping identities locked across cuts (Google blog).

    What 3.1 added on top of VEO 3:

    • Native 9:16 vertical for Shorts and TikTok (no center-crop hacks)
    • 4K upscaling from a 1080p base
    • Scene Extension for narratives over 60 seconds
    • Synchronized multi-person dialogue with timing-accurate sound effects
    • Available in Gemini app, Flow, Vertex AI, Gemini API, Google Vids, and YouTube Shorts (CineD)

    VEO 3.1 is the right pick when you need a recurring character to deliver lines with believable lip-sync. We covered the practical side in our VEO 3.1 complete guide. For the head-to-head with Sora, see Sora 2 vs VEO 3.1 deep capability comparison.

    Kling 3.0 / O3 (Kuaishou — February 2026)

    Kling 3.0 (also surfaced as "Kling O3") is the first unified multimodal video model — video, audio and image generation share a single architecture instead of being chained together. That means native lip-sync, multi-shot storyboarding, and element consistency cooperate by design rather than as patched-on tools (MindStudio).

    The intermediate Kling 2.6 release (December 3, 2025) was the first to ship synchronized audio for the family — 1080p at 48 FPS, 10-second max clip, plus the Elements feature for combining up to four reference images for character consistency (Artlist).

    Why it matters: Kling 3.0 currently ranks at or above VEO 3 on community benchmarks and is the model to beat for cinematic motion plus audio in a single shot. The 10-second cap is the catch — you'll need to chain via first/last-frame control to build longer scenes.

    Hailuo 2.3 (MiniMax — 2026 update)

    Hailuo 02 dropped in June 2025 and was instantly the price-performance winner. The 2.3 update kept the same $0.28/clip pricing while improving dynamic expression and stability (Hailuo 02).

    • 1080p native
    • 6 or 10-second clips at 24–30 FPS
    • Currently #2 on Artificial Analysis's video leaderboard, ahead of VEO 3 (MiniMax)
    • "Extreme physics" branding is real — water, fabric and crowd scenes hold up

    If your workflow is volume-driven (UGC ads, product B-roll, niche YouTube), Hailuo is still the cost-per-clip winner by a wide margin. We've baked it into our AI B-roll generator for exactly this reason.

    Runway Gen-4.5 (March 2026)

    Runway's Gen-4 launched March 2025 with the world-consistency pitch — characters, locations and props that survive cuts. Gen-4.5 ships in 2026 with state-of-the-art motion quality, prompt adherence, and visual fidelity (Runway).

    The unique selling point is still production-grade controls: real camera-motion language, light-direction control, and the closest thing to a virtual cinematography rig in any of these tools. If you're cutting AI footage into traditional editorial, Runway slots in cleanest because the controls map to a DP's vocabulary.

    PixVerse V6 (March 30, 2026)

    PixVerse V6 is the dark-horse release of the spring. Twenty-plus cinematic lens controls (focal length, aperture, depth of field, lens distortion, chromatic aberration, vignette), native multi-shot generation with synchronized audio, and — uniquely — a CLI that plugs into Claude Code, Codex and Cursor for agent-driven video pipelines (PixVerse).

    V6 marks PixVerse's transition from a template-heavy app to a genuine production platform. If you're scripting batch generation, it's the first model where the developer ergonomics match the visual quality.

    Wan 2.7 (Alibaba — April 2026, open source)

    Open-source video had a quiet 2025; April 2026 changed that. Alibaba shipped the full Wan 2.7 suite — text-to-video, image-to-video, reference-to-video with voice cloning, and instruction-based video editing — all under Apache 2.0 (Cliprise).

    Wan 2.5 already supported native synchronized audio (voice + SFX + lip-sync in one step) at 480p/720p/1080p with 10-second clips. 2.7 adds first-frame control and 15-second clips. Alibaba has confirmed Wan 3.0 will target 4K, 30-second generation, and 60B parameters under the same open license, mid-2026.

    For self-hosters and anyone who needs commercially-permissive weights, this is the only credible option at this quality tier.

    Two more shifts worth tracking

    Beyond the model-by-model news, two structural changes in the field deserve their own attention.

    The Artificial Analysis leaderboard has become the de-facto reference. Throughout 2025 it was easy to dismiss benchmarks as either vendor-curated or hobbyist. As of mid-2026, Artificial Analysis's video Elo, with thousands of pairwise human votes per model pair, is the best public signal — and it currently puts Hailuo 02 at #2, ahead of VEO 3, with Kling and Sora 2 trading the top spot depending on the prompt category. If a vendor cites a different benchmark, ask why.

    Cost-per-second is collapsing — but not uniformly. Hailuo 2.3 at $0.28/clip, Wan 2.7 self-hosted at near-zero marginal cost, and PixVerse V6 batch pricing have all pushed the floor down. Sora 2 Pro at $0.50/sec for 1024p is now the high-end outlier, not the norm. If you're building a content business, the unit economics in May 2026 are dramatically better than in January — but only if you're willing to model-shop per shot.

    Open-source caught the closed models. Wan 2.5 with native synchronized audio, then 2.7 with first-frame control and 15-second clips, means open weights are now within striking distance of VEO 3.0 quality. For self-hosters, hobbyists, and anyone with compliance constraints around closed APIs, this is the first time in two years you don't have to compromise on quality to stay open.

    Practical takeaway: what to use when

    Use case First pick Why
    Dialogue-heavy character scene VEO 3.1 (Ingredients to Video) Best identity lock + lip-sync
    Physical-action / sports / comedy Sora 2 Pro Physics realism, momentum
    Cinematic short film, single shot Kling 3.0 Unified multimodal, 1080p/48fps
    High-volume UGC ads Hailuo 2.3 $0.28/clip, fast
    Editorial-friendly camera language Runway Gen-4.5 DP vocabulary, motion controls
    Multi-shot with audio in one prompt PixVerse V6 Native multi-shot, CLI
    Self-hosted / open weights Wan 2.7 Apache 2.0, native audio

    The honest meta-strategy: don't pick one. The reason we built Versely's AI video generator as a multi-model router is that VEO is wrong for slapstick, Sora is wrong for budget B-roll, and Hailuo is wrong for branded character work. You want a single billing surface that lets you hop models per shot.

    FAQ

    Is Sora 2 still the best AI video model in May 2026?

    For physical realism and steerability, yes. For everything else — dialogue, vertical, character consistency, cost — there's a better answer. Kling 3.0 and VEO 3.1 trade wins on Artificial Analysis benchmarks depending on the prompt category.

    Has Google released VEO 4 yet?

    No. As of early May 2026, Google has not officially announced VEO 4, published a model page, or shipped an API ID. The "Veo 4 April 2026 release" content circulating on lower-quality SEO sites is speculation. VEO 3.1 remains current (Quest Studio).

    Can I still use Sora 2 for free?

    No. As of January 10, 2026, Sora image and video generation is gated to ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo) and Pro ($200/mo) subscribers. Free-tier access ended.

    What's the cheapest model that still produces broadcast-acceptable video?

    Hailuo 2.3 at roughly $0.28 per clip. Wan 2.5/2.7 if you can self-host on an H100 or rent it. PixVerse V5.6 sits in the middle of the price-quality curve.

    Does any model do longer than 25 seconds in a single generation?

    PixVerse V6 multi-shot and VEO 3.1 Scene Extension both push past 60 seconds in a single workflow, but they're stitching clips under the hood. True monolithic 60-second generation is not yet shipped at consumer-grade quality.

    Workflow patterns we're seeing in May 2026

    Three patterns have emerged across the creator teams we work with this quarter:

    The two-model A/B for every shot. Send the same prompt to two models (commonly VEO 3.1 and Kling 3.0, or Sora 2 and Hailuo 2.3), pick the winner. Cost is roughly 2x but iteration time drops because you don't have to re-prompt when the first generation misses. Worth it for hero shots, overkill for B-roll.

    Image-first, then image-to-video. Generate the keyframe in Midjourney V8.1 or FLUX.2 first, then pass it as a reference into VEO 3.1 Ingredients or Kling Elements. This gives you art-direction control on the visual aesthetic before committing video credits. We covered this pattern in AI image to video vs text to video: which to use.

    Audio in-prompt, no post-render. Now that Sora 2, VEO 3.1, Kling 3.0 and PixVerse V6 all generate audio in-pass, the old workflow (generate silent video → ElevenLabs voiceover → align in Premiere) is being abandoned. The in-pass audio isn't always better than ElevenLabs v3, but the time savings dominate for short-form social content where the cost of a 10% lower voice quality is outweighed by 3x faster turnaround.

    The next move

    Mid-year is when most creators rebuild their model stack. If you've been hand-rolling between four browser tabs to get a finished video, that's the symptom — the fix is a multi-model pipeline behind a single interface. Try Versely's AI video generator or build a full short with the AI movie maker and decide for yourself which model wins each shot.

    For the deeper Sora-vs-VEO breakdown, read Sora 2 vs VEO 3.1 deep capability comparison. For an end-to-end production playbook, see AI content creation 2026 complete playbook.