The new smartphone lineup from Chinese manufacturer Honor will include AI image-to-video capabilities developed in partnership with Google Cloud. The Honor 400 series will let users generate videos from static photos, according to the company. Google recently added support for Veo 2, which generates videos at up to 4K, for Gemini Advanced subscribers, and Honor says its new phones will have Veo 2 baked into the operating system, beating Google’s own Pixel phone to the punch. The Huawei spin-off is set to launch the 400 series May 22.

The Veo 2 generative video feature “processes still images straight from your photo gallery into five-second animated clips,” reports TechRadar, explaining “you don’t need a Gemini subscription or even a cloud connection to make the videos.”

The smartphone tool can be fed any image — be it a photograph, illustration, classic painting or AI-generated pic — and “after about a minute, you’ll see a video of some kind of motion based on the initial upload,” TechRadar writes. “The AI can simulate camera moves, make subjects breathe or blink, or otherwise imbue life into the pixels.”

PhoneArena admits onboard generative video “is not an essential feature,” but says that for those posting a lot on social media “or love creative tools, this might be your thing.”

Expected at this month’s launch are two models: the Honor 400 and 400 Pro. “The base model could land with a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip, a 6.55-inch AMOLED display at 120 Hz and a 200 MP rear camera,” posits PhoneArena, adding that Honor is just getting started with genAI features “and it is confident enough to call the Honor 400 series one of the top AI camera phones in its class.”

An Honor post on X social invites users to go “beyond a snapshot,” demonstrating how the Honor 400 series “can effortlessly transform your images into captivating videos with AI image to video — breathing new life into your stills.”

Digital Trends embraced the idea of generative video as an onboard capability, pointing out that “there are plenty of AI apps and web tools out there that can turn pictures into short videos, but they either offer expensive tokens or are loaded with ads and intrusive bloatware” and users can never be sure how the images they upload will be used.

While Huawei products are under embargo in the U.S., the company sold the Honor brand to a Chinese consortium in late 2020 to evade the sanction.