Google now lets you direct avatars through prompts in its Vids app

Google added new features to its video editor app Vids on Thursday, including controlling and customizing avatars via text prompts, Veo 3.1 support, the ability to export videos to YouTube and record with a Chrome extension.

Users can use natural language prompts to make avatars ‘act’ in a scene. This could include the avatar interacting with a product, prop, or device. The company said that despite the dynamic nature of the output, Vids maintains character consistency.

Google said users will be able to customize characters based on the theme of the video by changing appearance, changing clothes and creating new backgrounds through clues.

Last month, Google added the Lyria 3 and Lyria 3 Pro music creation models to Vids, allowing users to add sound effects or music to their clips. With this rollout, Google is introducing the Veo 3.1 video generation model, which allows eight-second clips to be created within the video editing tool. The company hands out 10 free generations per month to all users. The company said Google AI Ultra and Workspace AI Ultra accounts can generate up to 1,000 Veo videos per month.

Additionally, Google is adding the ability to export completed videos directly to YouTube, eliminating the need to download and upload them to the channel. All exported videos are private by default, so you can preview the video before making it public.

The company is also adding a new Chrome screen recording extension to the video suite, allowing users to capture the screen with audio or video.

Google has been continuously adding features to Vids since the product was first unveiled in 2024 to cater to business content creation. Last year, the company brought AI avatars to Vids and expanded consumer access. In February, the company added 2D and 3D cartoon-style avatars and added language support seven new voice-over languagesincluding French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese.

Google Vids faces competition from, for example, Synthesia, Hello GenD-ID and lemon slice.