Online creative marketplace Envato has launched VideoGen, a new feature that enables creative professionals to turn text or images into “hyper-realistic” and cinematic video.
VideoGen uses Veo 2, Google’s latest video generation model, on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform.
VideoGen allows creatives to generate video based on a range of sources, including text-only prompts, existing images from Envato’s vast library and images created by Envato’s AI-powered ImageGen feature. It said creatives can also use VideoGen to edit aspects such as source imagery, including backgrounds and colours, leading to video results that are more tailored to specific briefs.
VideoGen can also recognise and adapt its outputs to common cinematic language like camera motions such as pans, zooms, tilts, shot choices like close-up, midshot and composition techniques including lens length and depth of field.
The company said tens of thousands of its subscribers have been accessing its video generation capabilities in just the first few days of launch and generating a substantial volume of short videos in the process.
It added there has been a strong success rate, with nearly 60 per cent of these being downloaded for use in creative projects. Each five-second video takes less than a minute to produce.
However, Aaron Rutley, head of product for AI at Envato said the new product was not solely about speed.
“By automating tedious technical tasks, creative teams can spend more time focusing on storytelling, strategy and refinement,” Rutley told B&T.
“Instead of getting bogged down in repetitive edits, they can iterate faster, experiment more, and refine their vision with real-time feedback loops. We tried many of the top video models, and Veo 2 on Vertex AI drives the most impressive results when it comes to enhancing creativity, enabling agencies to test multiple variations, optimising engagement and developing richer, more polished and more effective content. And ultimately, the agencies still maintain creative control.”
There has been a great deal of consternation and hand-wringing in the creative industries over the last few weeks over AI-powered text-to-image and text-to-video tools—not least the new version of ChatGPT that can replicate the look of Studio Ghibli films. Even the Labor party has found itself the subject of industry ire for its use of low-rent AI videos on social media.
“VideoGen stands out because it’s built for creatives—not just for automation,” said Rutley.
“It’s seamlessly integrated with Envato’s massive library of unlimited licensed assets and templates, and gives users instant access to high-quality resources that elevate their work. Unlike generic AI tools, we worked with Google Cloud to develop VideoGen using the most advanced Veo model, Veo 2. It prioritises design flexibility, brand-safe outputs and true content ownership.”
Paul Migliorini, vice president, Google Cloud Australia and New Zealand, concurred.
“Veo 2 offers a quality, accuracy, and velocity of video generation that continues to transform creative industries, empowering businesses like Envato to diversify its solutions and maintain cutting-edge relevance for its customers,” he said.
“The early results of VideoGen not only testify to the intense market demand for high-fidelity generative video models like Veo 2, but also highlight the opportunities available to those that can translate these models into commercial offerings that enable creatives to prototype, refine, and get ideas to market faster and more engagingly than previously possible.”
VideoGen is included in Envato subscriptions at no added cost. Rutley believes that the tool will also allow agencies to deliver better results for clients.
“By slashing production time from days to minutes, agencies can respond faster to trends, scale content effortlessly, and deliver high-impact campaigns. It’s a game-changer for meeting the growing demand for video across social, web, and advertising, while ensuring both brand consistency and creative excellence in video projects,” he said.
