Ai2’s Molmo 2 shows open-source models can rival proprietary giants in video understanding

Fresh off releasing the latest version of its Olmo foundation model, the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) launched its open-source video model, Molmo 2, on Tuesday, aiming to show that smaller, open models can be viable options for enterprises focused on video understanding and analysis.

In a press release, the company said Molmo 2 “takes Molmo’s strengths in grounded vision and expands them to video and multi-image understanding,” a capability that has largely been dominated by larger proprietary models.

Ai2 released three variants of Molmo 2:

• Molmo 2 8B, a Qwen-3–based model that Ai2 describes as its “best overall model for video grounding and QA”

• Molmo 2 4B, designed for more efficient deployments

• Molmo 2-O 7B, built on the Olmo model

Molmo 2 supports single-image and multi-image inputs, as well as video clips of different lengths, enabling tasks such as video grounding, tracking, and question answering.

“One of ...