Honest question: does "real-time AI video" actually mean anything yet or is it just marketing?

A viral Reddit discussion is challenging the tech industry's liberal use of the term 'real-time AI video.' The core question: when companies like Runway (Gen-3), Pika Labs, or China's Kling AI tout 'real-time' capabilities, are they describing a system that generates video interactively from live input, or are they simply marketing faster batch processing? The original poster argues that true 'real-time' should imply a live, responsive loop—akin to a video call filter or interactive game engine—where the AI modifies output frame-by-frame based on immediate user commands or sensor data.

Currently, most so-called 'real-time' AI video models are achieving generation times of 30 to 90 seconds for a short clip, a massive speed improvement over earlier models that took minutes or hours. However, this is still a render queue, just a shorter one. True interactive systems, like Nvidia's research on neural graphics or some experimental diffusion-based live synthesis tools, are in early R&D phases and not yet mainstream products. This semantic debate is crucial for professionals in gaming, live streaming, and augmented reality who need to separate marketing hype from tools capable of genuine live integration.