YouTube Users Will Soon Be Able to Create AI-Generated Shorts Videos

Google is planning to make Veo 3, its state-of-the-art video generation model, available for YouTube Shorts creators very soon. This will make it possible for content creators to generate short videos with real-world physics and audio, AI-generated backgrounds, and more for free.

Google announced its latest Veo 3 model at its I/O 2025 developer conference last month, and users can try it now with a Google AI Pro plan. The highest access is currently restricted to Google’s new AI Ultra plan, which is priced at $249/month.

Neal Mohan, the CEO of YouTube, announced at the Cannes Lions Festival yesterday that Veo 3 will be coming to YouTube Shorts later this summer, and it will be free to use. This is quite a big deal as YouTube continues to compete with other apps focused on vertical video content such as Instagram and TikTok. The latter still has an uncertain future in the US despite getting another 90 days to avoid a national ban.

Yesterday, Mohan also announced that YouTube Shorts videos are now averaging over 200 billion daily views. “We’re seeing a huge uptick in the amount of people creating — and watching — Shorts,” the exec said.

Despite this growing audience, it’s not uncommon to see YouTube Shorts videos that are just being reposted from TikTok. However, maybe YouTube making a best-in-class AI video generator available for free will finally change that.