AI video generators are nothing new in this artificial intelligence age: All one has to do is look at OpenAI’s Sora announcement to see how pressing an issue these hyper-realistic yet totally false videos will be.
Google’s trying something new with its new Vids service, however. Announced during Google Cloud Next 2024, Vids is a new Workspace app that Google is selling as a “AI-powered video creation” program, rather than an AI video generator. Vids won’t necessarily create a video out of nothing, but it will help you realize a project you’re looking to create for work. While Vids can be a manual experience start to finish, its AI-powered features are what’s novel here.
Here’s how Google’s sees Vids integrating into your workflow: You open the app in Workspace, then describe the vision for your video in the text field. You can even link to work in other Workspace app, such as Docs, for reference.
Vids then generates a storyboard of sorts for your project, from an introduction, to each step in the video timeline. You can rearrange, edit, and delete any entry in this outline to craft a draft you’re happy with. Next up, you choose a “style” for your video, which reminds me of picking a website design in something like Squarespace if you’ve ever done that.
Gemini will process your selections, and will generate a draft of a video complete with stock images, videos, music, and sound effects. All of these elements are presented in a video editor, which you can control to adjust, edit, delete, or swap any element you want. You can even record voiceovers for your videos with a “Recording Studio.” You can use your own voice, or select one of Google’s options.
You can export and share a static video produced with Vids like any other video editing software, but Google also allows these products to be collaborative. You can generate a “Vid” and share it with others, who can then edit and rework the project themselves—similar to how other team-oriented Google products work.
As with Google’s other Cloud Next 2024 announcements, such as tabs in Google Docs and AI-powered Gmail draft editing, Vids will be a Workspace-exclusive app when it launches in June. That means you or your company needs to pay for a Workspace plan before you can try out Vids, which likely means only enterprise users will get to utilize its video generation features for now. Google is open to bringing Vids to general Google Accounts, however, so watch this space.
