Amazon’s Alexa Fund VC has made an investment in San Francisco-based startup Fable, which this week launched Showrunner, a generative AI model with an app that lets people create animated TV shows using text prompts. Showrunner has been in a closed alpha test involving about 10,000 users. Initially, Fable is making Showrunner available for free, but plans to eventually price it at $10-$20 monthly for credits enabling creation of TV-style content on Discord. The Showrunner-generated content will be shareable on social media sites including YouTube. Specific terms of Amazon’s investment have yet to be disclosed. Continue reading Amazon Invests in Fable, Creator of the ‘Showrunner’ AI App

New York-based Runway AI has introduced a sophisticated video model called Aleph that can perform a wide range of edits from text prompts — adding, removing and transforming objects; generating various angles on a scene; or modifying style and lighting, among other things. Aimed at streamlining post-production, Runway calls Aleph an “in-context video model,” meaning it is designed to work with existing visual material rather than generating imagery from scratch. Using Aleph puts storytellers just a prompt or two from turning that wide shot into an extreme close-up, or adding a new “next shot,” providing what Runway calls “endless coverage.” Continue reading Runway Aleph Provides Video Editors with ‘Endless Coverage’

Runway has joined forces with IMAX to present the finalists from its fourth annual AI Film Festival in a 10-city U.S. commercial run, with four days of screenings at each location, from August 17 to 20. Tickets are on sale now for IMAX theaters in Manhattan, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, Boston, Atlanta, Denver and Washington, D.C. The 10 finalists vied among 6,000 submissions for the 2025 competition, which marks the first time the AIFF finalists will get a national theatrical release. In 2024 finalists screened for one day at only two theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Continue reading Runway Sets a 10-City IMAX Release for AI Film Fest Finalists

Google has added new AI features to Google Photos and YouTube Shorts. Having previously introduced generative backgrounds, YouTube Shorts now has a photo-to-video feature, as well as a variety of menu-driven effects accessible via the Shorts camera that aim to advance social media or arts project creativity — things like turning line drawings into watercolors, putting a selfie “underwater” or adding a digital twin. And Google Photos, available on just about every Android phone, now also has the ability to turn stills to video. For now, both rely on the Veo 2 video model rather than Veo 3, launched in May. Continue reading Google Photos, YouTube Shorts Offer New AI Creation Tools

Startup Decart AI is showcasing MirageLSD, a “world transformation model” that can change the look of a camera feed, recorded video or game in real time. Built on the company’s Live-Stream Diffusion (LSD) model, Mirage debuted last week as a demo on the company website with iOS and Android apps scheduled for release this week. Mirage makes it possible to manipulate video continuously, in real time with zero latency. The technology has created buzz as a potential disruptor in the live-streaming space, and it looks like it could be an impactful special effects tool as well. Continue reading Decart AI’s Mirage Transforms Live-Stream Video in Real Time

Adobe’s Firefly Video model has introduced new updates including Generate Sound Effects, in beta, and a text-to-avatar feature that lets users turn scripts into avatar-led videos “in just a few clicks.” Firefly becomes the second video model to generate audio, joining Veo 3, although unlike Google’s AI video tool Firefly does not yet generate dialogue. What it can do is output foley-like sound and sound effects, while text-to-avatar can generate speech. As with Firefly’s generative visuals, Adobe says Generate Sound Effects is “commercially safe,” which means they are trained only on licensed or publicly available material. Continue reading Adobe Adds Generative Audio and Text-to-Avatar to Firefly AI

Google has added photo-to-video capability to its Gemini AI app. Powered by Veo 3, Google’s latest generative video model, launched in May, Gemini AI can now turn images into 8-second videos complete with AI-generated sound including speech, environmental sounds and background noises. Available now via the Web to anyone with a $20 per month Google AI Pro subscription or those on the $125 per quarter Google AI Ultra plan, the new feature is also being released to mobile users this month for both iOS and Android devices. The videos are finished as 720p resolution MP4 files in 16:9 landscape format. Continue reading Google Offers Gemini AI Subscribers Photo-to-Video Function

Google Labs is testing Doppl, an experimental app that uses AI to let you virtually try on clothes. Available on iOS and Android in the U.S., Doppl requires the user to upload a full body photo to which images of outfits can then be applied. It will work with various types of outfit photos, from pictures taken with a smartphone to screen grabs from shopping sites or social media. Doppl can also create AI-generated videos from a static image to give an idea of what the outfit would look like from different angles when worn. While Google hopes Doppl “helps you explore your style in new and exciting ways,” it cautions that the app “is in its early days and it might not always get things right.” Continue reading Google Doppl Lets You Try on Outfits Using Generative Video

YouTube Shorts is getting a free Veo 3 upgrade that will let creators generate high-quality AI video clips using text prompts. The news was announced by YouTube CEO Neal Mohan at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where it was positioned as a means for brands to transform how advertisements are produced. Veo 3 functionality will be integrated “later this summer,” according to Mohan. The Google DeepMind video generation model has been made available for use in YouTube Shorts starting with Veo 2. With Veo 3, the platform gets audio capability and what Mohan describes as “vastly improved” video quality. Continue reading Google Adding AI Video Generator Veo 3 to YouTube Shorts

Meta is launching a generative AI video editing tool, available in the Meta AI app, via the Meta.AI website and in the Edits app for Facebook and Instagram. Users are now able to transform 10 seconds of video using preset AI prompts that can change an outfit, location, style and more. The company says the feature is “inspired by” its Movie Gen models and promises it is the “first step toward our goal of bringing you AI video generation and editing across our apps and products,” with Meta AI video editing able to handle individualized text prompts later this year. The free tool is now available in the U.S. and about a dozen countries around the world. Continue reading Meta Rolls Out AI Video Editor Available via App and the Web

Chatbot platform Character.AI is rolling out its video generator, AvatarFX, in general release after a month in closed beta. It’s also adding a sharing feature called Scenes and Streams that will serve content to Character.AI’s community feed, coming soon to mobile. Users can now tap AvatarFX to create up to five videos per day, starting by uploading a photo, choosing a voice and writing dialogue for the character. Character.AI started as 1:1 text chat in the summer of 2023. Now the company is “expanding into a multi-modal world” with “more ways for creators to build immersive narratives and dynamic experiences.” Continue reading Character.AI Goes Wide with AvatarFX, Adds Mobile Features

Artificial intelligence startup Odyssey, which turns two this year, has unveiled an interactive streaming AI video model. Available on the web in research preview, the model generates video streams every 40 milliseconds that viewers can navigate through — much like interacting with a 3D-rendered video game using either a keyboard, game controller or smartphone. Odyssey describes the current experience as similar to “exploring a glitchy dream” and says that while “utility is limited for now” its breakthrough is based on the fact that “improvements won’t be driven by hand-built game engines, but rather by models and data.” Continue reading Odyssey’s AI World Modeling Engine Streams Interactive 3D

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. Continue reading Google Veo 2 Video Generator Coming to New Honor Phones

Lightricks, the company behind the Facetune and Videoleap apps, has released a new video model called LTX Video, or LTXV, that generates what the company describes as high-quality AI video at speeds up to 30 times faster than competing products, and does it using consumer-grade hardware. The open-source, 13-billion parameter model achieves such efficiency by utilizing an approach called multiscale rendering, which generates video in progressively detailed layers. The program can run on high-end laptops and standard desktop computers, opening up generative video to an audience beyond those who have access to enterprise equipment. Continue reading Lightricks LTXV Makes Video Generation Faster and Cheaper

Among the many tech advancements unveiled at Google Cloud Next include a major generative media upgrade to Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s managed AI development platform. The new Vertex AI Media Studio lets enterprise users generate complete videos from scratch using text prompts. Lyria, Google’s text-to-music model is now available on Vertex in private preview. Both are subject to an “allowlist.” Chirp 3 now creates custom voices with just 10 seconds of audio input, while Imagen 3 has gained improved abilities for reconstructing missing or damaged portions of an image. Continue reading Vertex AI Movie Studio Can Create Videos from Start to Score