AI video generators are nothing new in this age of artificial intelligence, and you only need to look at OpenAI's Sora announcement to see just how pressing an issue these hyper-realistic, yet completely fake, videos are becoming.
But Google is trying something new with its new Vids service. Announced at Google Cloud Next 2024, Vids is a new Workspace app that Google is marketing as an “AI-powered video creation” program rather than an AI video generator. Vids doesn't necessarily create videos from scratch, but it can help you bring to life the projects you want to create for work. can It's a manual operation from start to finish, but the AI-based features are innovative.
Google says the way Vids can be integrated into your workflow is by opening the app in Workspace and describing your vision for the video in a text field. You can also link to and reference work in other Workspace apps, like Docs.
Vids generates something like a storyboard for your project, from the introduction to each step of your video timeline. You can rearrange, edit, and delete entries in this outline to create a draft you're happy with. Next, you choose a “style” for your video, which is reminiscent of when you pick a website design on something like Squarespace (if you've ever picked a website design on Squarespace, that'll sound familiar).
Gemini will process your selections and create a video draft complete with stock images, video, music and sound effects. All of these elements will appear in the video editor, where you can adjust, edit, remove or replace any of them. You can also use the “Recording Studio” to record a narration for your video. You can use your own voice or choose one of Google's options.
Static videos created with Vids can be exported and shared like any other video editing software, but Google also lets these products be used collaboratively: you can generate a “vid” and share it with others, who can then edit and rework your project for themselves, similar to how other team-oriented Google products work.
Like Google's other Cloud Next 2024 announcements, like Google Docs tabs and AI-powered Gmail draft editing, Vids will be a Workspace-only app when it launches in June. This means that to try out Vids, you or your company will need to pay for a Workspace plan, meaning the video generation feature will only be available to enterprise users for now. However, Google is considering bringing Vids to general Google accounts, so keep an eye out for that.
