xAI Ships Grok Imagine Video 1.5 to GA — #1 on the Arena, 86% Cheaper Than Sora 2 Pro

xAI·high signal

xAI moved Grok Imagine Video 1.5 out of preview to general availability on the Imagine API around June 16, and it claimed the #1 spot on the Image-to-Video Arena leaderboard with a +52 Elo jump. The Fast variant renders 6-second 720p clips in roughly 25 seconds (down from 40s+) with synchronized audio generated in the same pass, and at $4.20/min for 720p it undercuts Sora 2 Pro's $30/min by about 86%. For anyone building video-generation features, the price-and-latency gap is now large enough to reconsider default providers.