Google Takes on OpenAI's Sora with Veo 2 Video Generation Model

Google launches Veo 2: Google today launched the second generation of its video-generation model. The AI model called Veo 2 succeedes Veo that was launched at the time of the company's annual developers' conference, Google I/O 2024, and it enabled users to generate high-quality videos with a resolution of 1080p.

Google says that its newly launched Veo 2 video generation model 'brings an improved understanding of real-world physics and the nuances of human movement and expression, which helps improve its detail and realism overall'. In addition to improving the understanding of the real world, Google has also updated the video quality that this model offers. While Veo generated videos in 1080p resolution, Veo 2 is capable of generation with up to 4K resolution.

"Veo 2 understands the unique language of cinematography: ask it for a genre, specify a lens, suggest cinematic effects and Veo 2 will deliver — at resolutions up to 4K, and extended to minutes in length," Google wrote in a blog post.

"Suggest “18mm lens” in your prompt and Veo 2 knows to craft the wide angle shot that this lens is known for, or blur out the background and focus on your subject by putting "shallow depth of field" in your prompt," the company added.

In addition to this, the company has also added a bunch of safety features to its video generation model. Google says that the videos generated by Veo 2 come with 'an invisible SynthID watermark that helps identify them as AI-generated'.

Google Veo 2 availability

As far as availability is concerned, Google says that Veo 2 is available in Google Labs' video generation tool, VideoFX. However, interested users will have to join a waitlist to access it. Furthermore, the company said that it plans to bring Veo 2 to YouTube Shorts and other products sometime in 2025.

Google's Veo 2 vs OpenAI's Sora

It is worth noting that the development comes shortly after the AI startup, OpenAI, launched its text-to-video generator model called Sora Turbo. Sora Turbo builds on Sora that arrived earlier this year and it is available as a part of the ChatGPT Plus account without any additional cost.