Sora, Runway, Pika are good enough for B-roll and stock footage now. Mid-tier production budgets will compress.

AI video generation in 2026 is good enough for B-roll, stock footage replacement, and short-form social content. Sora 2, Runway Gen-4, and Pika 2 produce 5-15 second clips that are practical for indie creators and small-budget agencies. The Indian corporate-video market — typically ₹2-8L per film — will see meaningful budget compression by 2027. The winners are creators who integrate AI tools into a human-led production workflow. The losers are mid-tier production companies dependent on B-roll-heavy projects where the human creative differentiator is small. Wedding and event work is structurally protected (capturing actual moments matters); commercial and corporate work less so.