- Google Flow is a new tool for filmmakers to tap into the power of generative AI
- Flow uses multiple Google AI models to create cinematic scenes and characters from text prompts
- This could open up more creative movie-making for people without Hollywood budgets
Google clearly wants to inject artificial intelligence into more creative tools, as evidenced by the introduction of Flow at today’s Google I/O 2025.
Flow is the search giant’s new ‘AI filmmaking tool’ that uses Google’s AI models, such as Veo, Imagen, and Gemini to help creative types explore storytelling ideas in movies and videos without needing to go out and film clips and cinematic scenes or sketch out a lot of storyboard scenes by hand.
Effectively an extension of the experimental Google Labs VideoFX tool launched last year, Flow lets users add in text prompts in natural, everyday language to create scenes, such as “astronauts walk out of the museum on a bridge,” and the AI tech behind Flow will create such a scene.
Flow lets filmmakers bring their own assets into it, from which characters and other images can be created. Once a subject or scene is created, it can be integrated into clips and scenes in a fashion that’s consistent with the video or film as a whole.
There are other controls beyond the creation of assets and scenes, with Flow offering direct manipulation of camera angles, perspectives and motion, easy editing of scene to hone in on features or widen up a shot to include more action – this appears to work as easily as a cropping tool – and offers the ability to manage all the ‘ingredients’ and prompt for Flow.
Flow will be available for subscribers of Google Al Pro and Google Al Ultra plans in the US, with more countries slated to get access to the filmmaking AI soon.
AI-made movies?
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From seeing videos of Flow in action, it appears to be a powerful tool that brings an idea into a visual form, and with surprising realism. Powered by natural language prompts means budding filmmakers can create shots and science that would in the past have required dedicated sets or at least some deft CGI work.
In effect, Flow could be one of those AI tools that opens up the world of cinema to a wider range of creatives, or at least gives amateurs more powerful creative tools to bring their ideas to life.
However, this does raise the question of whether Flow would be used to create ideas for storytelling that would then be brought into silver screen life via physical sets, actors, and dedicated cinema CGI. Or if Flow will be used to create whole movies with AI, effectively letting directors be the sole producers of films, and bypass the need for actors, camera people, and the wealth of crew that are integral to traditional movie making.
As such, AI-powered tools like Flow could breathe new life into the world of cinema that one might argue has got a little stale, at least on the big production commercial side, and at the same time disrupt the roles and work required in the movie-making industry.
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