Google’s Veo 3.1 Can Turn Your Photos Into Viral-Ready Videos

Google is giving its Veo AI video tool a noticeable glow-up. 

The company announced on Jan. 13 that Veo can now create more expressive videos from images, handle vertical formats natively, and deliver sharper output up to 4K, all aimed at creators who live on their phones and timelines.

At the center of the update is an improved version of Veo 3.1 Ingredients to Video, a feature that lets users generate short video clips using reference images and simple text prompts.

Google says the tool now produces videos that feel more alive, even when prompts are short. According to the company, users should see stronger motion, better storytelling, and more expressive scenes built directly from still images.

“Even with short prompts, you can generate dynamic and engaging videos based on ingredient images,” Ricky Wong, lead product manager at Google DeepMind, wrote in the announcement. “You’ll now see richer dialogue and storytelling, making your videos feel more alive and expressive.”

Better consistency for characters and scenes

One of the biggest headaches with AI video has always been drift, where a character’s face or a room’s wallpaper changes randomly between shots. Veo 3.1 claims to have solved much of this. The new model offers enhanced identity consistency, meaning a character will look like the same person even when moved from a sunny park to a dark office across multiple clips.

The update also allows users to reuse specific objects, backgrounds, or textures. This allows for a multi-scene narrative in which the environment remains stable, giving the final product a professional, hand-edited feel.

The goal, according to the company, is to make it easier to tell longer stories instead of one-off clips.

Native vertical video comes to Veo

Perhaps the most practical addition for social media enthusiasts is the native support for 9:16 vertical video. Gone are the days of awkward cropping or losing quality to fit the TikTok and YouTube Shorts format.

Wong noted the importance of this shift for creators: “Whether you are creating for YouTube Shorts or other platforms, you can now produce high-quality, full-screen vertical storytelling without cropping or quality loss.”

By supporting portrait mode natively, the AI now understands how to compose scenes specifically for a vertical frame, ensuring characters and action aren’t cut off by the edges of the screen.

Pro-grade quality and verification

For those who need more than just a social media post, Google is introducing “state-of-the-art upscaling.” 

Users can now bump their creations up to 1080p for a cleaner look or 4K for maximum detail. While 4K is currently limited to professional platforms like Flow and the Gemini API, it signals Google’s intent to move AI video into the world of broadcast-ready production.

With great power comes great responsibility, and Google is keeping its SynthID digital watermarking front and center. Every video generated is embedded with an invisible watermark. In a move toward transparency, the Gemini app now lets users upload any video to check if it was actually made with Google’s AI tools.

Where to try it

For everyday users and creators, the enhanced Veo is now available in the Gemini app.

It’s also being integrated directly into YouTube Shorts and the YouTube Create app. For developers and businesses, the upgraded model is rolling out to Flow, the Gemini API, Vertex AI, and Google Vids.

Also read: Gemini on Google TV will add Veo-powered video features alongside new AI controls, according to Google’s CES 2026 preview.

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