Runway co-CEO says AI can 'absolutely' replace actors

Runway co-CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela told a View Conference audience in Turin that AI could replace human actors, and that it is already starting to.

An audience member asked Valenzuela, the co-founder and co-CEO of the AI video company Runway, whether AI could eventually replace human actors. Variety's Callum McLennan reported the exchange in a report published October 20, 2026 from the fireside chat "Every Pixel Will Be Generated." The session ran on the last day of the 27th View Conference, listed in the conference's own program for Friday, October 16, 2026, 10:15 to 11:15 CET in the FUCINE room. No recording has been published.

View Conference bills Runway as "an applied AI research company shaping the next era of art, entertainment and human creativity," and lists Valenzuela as a former researcher at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

"Yeah, absolutely. I think it's already happening in a way," he replied.

He described AI as "a new medium of expression" and "a new medium of storytelling."

His fellow speaker, NVIDIA's Richard Kerris, vice president of developer relations and general manager of media and entertainment, had recalled earlier in the session a director's argument that the spontaneity between a director and an actor, such as Marlon Brando improvising with a cat on the set of "The Godfather," could never be prompted.

"That craft is something to behold, and I just think that that's something that I don't think we'll ever lose," Kerris said.

Valenzuela's second answer was narrower than his first.

"Not now, but I think models are going to get probably to a point where you can probably direct them in a very similar way," Valenzuela replied.

Kerris also stressed that filmmaking still needs an understanding of character, composition and story. There is no "make movie button."

"I wish," joked Valenzuela.

What "already happening in a way" refers to was never spelled out. Valenzuela named no production and no role. Every quote above rests on one reporter's account of the room, and there is no second version of what was said.

The argument behind the answer is written down. In "It's All About the Pixel Economy," dated July 2025, he writes: "The value of creating pixels is trending towards zero." He adds: "Eventually, this will lead to the convergence of seconds consumed and seconds generated." In "The Cost of a Frame," dated April 2026, he writes: "This is the last expensive layer." AI, he argues, is collapsing it.

Variety also asked him about the training material behind the models. He called one of the "core misbeliefs" about AI the idea that "people thought AI was some sort of a database."

"They're not databases," he said. "They're learning from representation."

Courts are still working out what that means for the artists in the data. Runway is one of four companies named in a proposed class action by visual artists in the Northern District of California, alongside Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt. The suit alleges their copyrighted work was used to develop the generative models without compensation or permission, according to Variety and the case record. Runway was added as a defendant in an amended complaint, and the artists filed a third amended complaint in February 2026.

Valenzuela gave a firmer answer on replacing actors than on directing them.

Read the full report in Variety; Runway's models are at runwayml.com, and Valenzuela's essays are at cvalenzuelab.com.