On its 20th anniversary, YouTube is venturing into an era of AI-generated video, and may never be the same. Google figured out early on that video would be a great addition to its search business, so in 2005 it launched Google Video. Focused on making deals with the entertainment industry for second-rate content, and overly cautious on what users could upload, it flopped . In 2006, Google snapped up that year-old company, figuring it would sort out the IP stuff later. Though the $1.65 billion purchase price for YouTube was about a billion dollars more than its valuation, it was one of the greatest bargains ever.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Google's Gemini AI can now make 1080p videos and costs half as much Both Veo 3 and Veo 3 Fast models just got updated features and much better pricing. Google's video-generating AI model, called Veo 3, can now generate videos in Full HD. The company announced yesterday that it has updated the AI model to support both a higher resolution and a new format. With both Veo 3 and Veo 3 Fast models, Gemini can now generate videos in 1080p resolution.

A few months ago, Google debuted a feature in Google Photos that lets you convert your existing photos into short videos using generative AI. These videos introduce slight synthetic movements to your stills, so a person may appear to slightly shift around in the frame, or a picture of your sleeping pup could gain a leg twitch. This week, the company upgraded this feature with its Veo 3 video generation model, which boosts the quality of the results. To play around with it, head to any photo in Google Photos, tap the three-dot button at the top right, and tap Create. Choose the Photo to Video option, and then pick between Subtle Movement or I'm Feeling Lucky, which will be a little more creative.

In both Tehran and Tel Aviv, residents have faced heightened anxiety in recent days as the threat of missile strikes looms over their communities. Alongside the very real concerns for physical safety, there is growing alarm over the role of misinformation, particularly content generated by artificial intelligence, in shaping public perception. GeoConfirmed, an online verification platform, has reported an increase in AI-generated misinformation, including fabricated videos of air strikes that never occurred, both in Iran and Israel. This follows a similar wave of manipulated footage that circulated during recent protests in Los Angeles, which were sparked by a rise in immigration raids in the second-most populous city in the United States. The developments are part of a broader trend of politically charged events being exploited to spread false or misleading narratives.

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. With every passing month, AI-generated content gets harder to distinguish from material made by human beings. Google's latest video maker is a case in point: The newly launched Veo 3 model is a step up in terms of realism, while also adding audio for the first time, so synced dialog, natural sound, and other audio effects can be added in. Google promises the new Veo 3 model has a better understanding of real world physics, and is smarter at turning your text prompts into video clips. Those clips are capped at eight seconds for now, and at a resolution of 720p--presumably because of the high computing (and environmental) demands of generating these videos.

In the last few days, AI-generated text-to-video has taken off, with Google's lifelike Veo 3 model generating video and dialogue that approach realism. Now Microsoft has entered the fray, by offering the video-generation portion for free with Bing Video Creator. Unfortunately, the new Bing Video Creator is accompanied by a cadre of compromises, although the premise is still true: Download the Bing mobile application for your smartphone, and you can generate 10 "fast" 5-second creations for free, although you'll have to pay for more with credits in Microsoft's system or just wait longer. Here's how Bing Video Creator works, and what works…and what doesn't. Microsoft's free Bing app for your smartphone is essentially a Start menu for all of Microsoft's mobile services.

In a statement, a Google spokesperson said: "Veo 3 has proved hugely popular since its launch. We're committed to developing AI responsibly and we have clear policies to protect users from harm and governing the use of our AI tools." Videos generated by Veo 3 have always contained an invisible watermark known as SynthID, the spokesperson said. Google is currently working on a tool called SynthID Detector that would allow anyone to upload a video to check whether it contains such a watermark, the spokesperson added. However, this tool is not yet publicly available.