What shipped
Google dropped the paywall on AI video inside Google Vids. Anyone with a personal Google account or a Workspace account can go to vids.new on desktop, pick Create AI videos, and generate scenes with Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash.
New controls matter more than the headline. You can stretch a scene without the lighting and characters jumping. You can lock a clip to an exact length so it fits a script. You can generate in 1080p or upscale older AI clips so they sit on the same timeline. Every Omni 1.1 clip gets an invisible SynthID watermark in the frames.
Google says more volume on a personal account sits on Google AI plans. Workspace Business and Enterprise get larger pools and admin controls. Help pages and hands-on write-ups put the free personal pool around six clips a month. Confirm the counter in your own account. Voiceover from Gemini 3.8 Flash-Lite is listed as coming soon, not here today.
Why a small team cares
A solo shop running Meta ads no longer needs a $30–80 video tool to see if an idea works. Six free clips is enough to test one product angle, one founder-to-camera stand-in, and one failed prompt. You find out if the brief is any good before you pay an editor or a generation API.
Hype vs useful
Free HD is the pitch. Useful is first drafts. Some testers still saw 720p on the first pass even though Google advertises 1080p generation and upscaling, so check the export, do not assume the label. This does not replace a shoot, a real voice, or a brand pass. Do not post raw AI video as the company film. Add branding, cut the weird hands, and treat SynthID as a watermark, not a quality stamp.