Runway Solaris reimagines software interfaces without front-end code

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Retail media is becoming a brand-building channel, not just a conversion tool. Its expansion into CTV, off-site and in-store formats gives marketers reach near purchase, but the budget case now hinges on proving incrementality and brand lift with credible measurement.

Article:

Runway has unveiled Solaris, an AI system that generates interactive software interfaces frame by frame instead of translating designs into HTML, CSS or JavaScript. Announced on August 31, Solaris is the first model in what the company calls “Interface World Models,” pushing generative UI beyond AI-assisted coding toward software that is rendered as users click, drag or type. The shift matters because it could compress the gap between visual design and working product.

“Every frame is synthesized as you interact,” Runway says. A language model decides how the interface should evolve, while the visual world model renders each state in real time. Runway says Solaris targets 720p visual quality and is being prepared with partners for broader public access.

In Runway’s own study of 250 participants across 30 interaction examples, nearly 7,500 pairwise judgments favored Solaris over coded interfaces 61% of the time for instruction-following and 71% for natural behavior. The result is promising, but it remains vendor-run evidence rather than independent validation.

The bigger opportunity is adaptive software. AI-generated interfaces could reshape no-code development, front-end workflows, e-commerce and AI agent training by creating screens around a user’s immediate intent instead of forcing every interaction through fixed templates. This is a different route from earlier generative UI systems, such as Google’s 2025 experiments, which still generated HTML, CSS and JavaScript underneath the experience.

Solaris is not production-ready. Runway lists stable text, trust, long-session coherence, accessibility and integration as unresolved. That last gap is material: W3C says components “must work together in order for the web to be accessible,” including assistive technologies and user agents. Until Solaris can connect reliably to that software stack, its most credible near-term role may be experimental interfaces and training environments, not wholesale replacement of conventional apps.