Google Photos upgrades its image-to-video feature with Veo 3

Google’s latest video-generation model, Veo 3, is coming to Google Photos. The new model, available on the mobile app’s “Create” tab, will allow users in the U.S. to turn their still images into video clips.

Google Photos already offers video generation through its recently added “Photo to video” feature, but the company says the addition of Veo 3 enhances that functionality with higher-quality video. The launch also represents how the company is working to bring its latest AI tech to consumers through its products — Google Photos, for instance, had over 1.5 billion monthly active users as of May 2025.

Introduced in May at its I/O developer conference, Google brought Veo 3, which added image-to-video generation, to its Gemini app in July, making it available on its AI Ultra and AI Pro subscription plans. On those plans, users could generate three videos per day, which would carry both visible and invisible watermarks to identify the videos as being AI-generated.

In Google Photos, the company imagines users bringing memories to life, or even animating older photos. The existing image-to-video feature is powered by Veo 2, and lets users select a photo from their gallery and choose one of two prompts for either “subtle movements” or a surprise animation by tapping an “I’m feeling lucky” button. The model then generates a six-second clip you could share with others.

With Veo 3, the feature will remain free with a limited number of generations available, says Google. AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers will have access to more generations. However, it won’t support audio and its videos will be 4 seconds long.

The new photo-to-video feature is available within the Create hub, a new section in the Google Photos app where users can explore creative tools and features powered by AI. In addition to Veo 3, these include a remix option to change a photo’s style; make a collage; put together montages from your galleries; create moving, 3D photos called “cinematic” photos; and a tool to make GIFs from pics.