Earlier this year, Google unveiled a new AI-powered video creation app within its Google Workspace suite called Google Vids, a tool designed to help companies quickly create internal video content, with the results acting like a PowerPoint presentation on steroids.
At the time, Google said it would begin testing the feature in June. However, the company is currently testing the new application with a select group of trusted testers in Google Workspace Labs, even as a few eagle-eyed Workspace Labs users have noticed that the app is already out in the wild and fully functional.
How to use;
While you can start your video project from scratch, Google Vids has Gemini AI integration that does the heavy lifting for you. There's a lot that the AI can do for you: it can create slides, write a script, find relevant stock footage from Shutterstock, create a storyboard for your entire video, and more.
You can then edit the video by adding or removing elements like slides, text fields, images, recordings, and export it as an MP4 file.Compared to Google Docs, where the AI-powered Help me Write feature hides to the side, Vids puts Gemini prompts front and center.
When you open a new project, you're presented with a text field where you can describe the theme or goal of your video in a few sentences, or you can tell the AI to use a document from your Google Drive, or you can skip the AI integration entirely and start with one of the existing templates.
Observations from trusted testers.
Users have commented that the AI efforts are pretty basic at the moment and it's not a fully automated experience, but the app should improve in the weeks ahead before Google Vids rolls out to paying Google Workspace users.
Some users complained that they hadn't noticed the AI-powered voice features that Google demonstrated on stage in April, and in response, Google advised users to try Vids for free by signing up for access to Workspace Labs.
The overall experience is reminiscent of iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, with some differences in features. In other words, Google Vids is good enough for short, disposable videos that you might use only once for school or work, and thanks to the integration with Gemini, creating these videos doesn't take much time.
See also: How to sign up for and use Google's AI tool Gemini
