Runway vs Synthesia
as AI assistants see them, week of 2026-09-28
Runway leads this matchup, showing up in 40 of 62 answers versus Synthesia's 25, with an overall score of 44 to 25. ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity all rank Runway higher, and head-to-head, Runway gets named more often on 14 questions compared to 4 for Synthesia, with 2 ties. Runway owns general video-generation questions, landing in 4 of 4 answers for "best AI video generators," while Synthesia carves out its own territory in talking-head videos, lip sync, and avatar tools for training, each at 3 of 3 answers. Different tools, different strengths, if the questions are anything to go by.
Head to head
| metric | Runway | Synthesia |
|---|---|---|
| score | 44 | 25 |
| questions won | 15 | 13 |
By assistant
Runway
| assistant | score | named in, this week | usual spot, this week |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 58 | 70% of answers | #2.4 |
| Claude | 45 | 75% of answers | #5.5 |
| Gemini | not sampled this week | ||
| Perplexity | 33 | 45% of answers | #3.4 |
Synthesia
| assistant | score | named in, this week | usual spot, this week |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 24 | 30% of answers | #2.5 |
| Claude | 31 | 60% of answers | #7.2 |
| Gemini | not sampled this week | ||
| Perplexity | 23 | 30% of answers | #3.0 |
Where they differ
Only Runway gets named for
- Which AI video generator has the best commercial licensing?
- What's the best AI tool to animate a still image into video?
- Which AI video generator handles the longest clips?
- What's the best AI video tool for creators on a budget?
- What's the best AI video tool for social media ads?
- What's the best AI video editor for cleaning up footage I already have?
Only Synthesia gets named for
- What's the best AI avatar video tool for training or explainer videos?
- What's the best AI tool to make a talking-head video from a script?
- What's the best AI video generator with lip sync in other languages?
- What's the best AI tool to turn a blog post or doc into a video?
More comparisons
Not sold on either?
Scores count how often each assistant names a product, weighted by position. How the score works · Full AI video generators leaderboard