YouTube introduces new AI tools to let creators turn photos into videos

YouTube has unveiled a range of new AI tools designed to enhance creativity and expand options for its global creator community. The announcement was made during the company’s 2025 Made on YouTube event held at Pier 57 in New York on Tuesday.

The video-sharing platform is integrating Google DeepMind’s Veo 3 Fast generative AI model into YouTube Shorts, allowing users to create video clips or backgrounds with sound simply by entering text prompts. These features are available free of cost. YouTube said additional Veo-powered options are coming soon, enabling creators to animate still images with motion, restyle videos in formats such as pop-art or origami, and insert props or objects into scenes using text descriptions.

Another feature launched is a speech-to-song tool that can convert spoken dialogue into a soundtrack for Shorts. At present, Shorts users in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand are gaining access to Veo 3, which generates 480p resolution videos with unlimited free usage.

Also Read: YouTube’s new AI can guess your age from what you search and watch

To address transparency concerns around AI content, YouTube confirmed that it will continue applying SynthID watermarks and content labels to mark videos generated with AI tools.

In parallel, the company is widening access to its likeness-detection tool within YouTube Studio, making it available in open beta for all YouTube Partner Program creators. The tool helps creators identify videos using their facial likeness without permission and report misuse to YouTube.

YouTube Studio, the platform’s dashboard for analytics and content management, is currently used by more than 30 million creators each month.

The platform also shared updated figures, noting that it has distributed over $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies between January 2021 and December 2024.