Google follows a recent promise to add even more generic AI capabilities to its photography and video products. On YouTube, Google is rolling out the first wave of generated AI videos for YouTube shorts, but even if you're not a YouTuber, you'll be exposed to AI videos right away. Google Photos is integrated with almost every Android phone on the market and also has AI video generation capabilities. In both cases, the features are now based on the older VEO 2 models, not the VEO 3, which has been announced across the Internet since it was announced at I/O in May.
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan confirmed earlier this summer that the company plans to add generation AI to its creator tool for YouTube shorts. We already had tools to generate backgrounds for videos, but the next phase involves creating new video elements from a text prompt.
Starting today, creators can use photos as the basis for new generation AI videos. YouTube also promises a collection of easily applied, generative effects that can be accessed through the shorts camera. There is also a new AI Playground Hub, home to all AI tools, and examples and suggested prompts to help pump AI content.
VEO 2-based videos are less realistic than VEO 3 clips, but upgrades are planned.
So far, all YouTube AI video features are running on VEO 2 models. The plan is expected to move to VEO 3 later this summer. The AI capabilities of YouTube shorts are currently limited to the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but will expand to more countries later.
