Google confirms Vids can export as MP4, intends to bring to consumers eventually

Yesterday, at Cloud Next 2024, Google announced a brand new product for Workspace: Google Vids. Living alongside popular productivity apps such as Docs, Sheets, and Slides, Google Vids allows users to create engaging video content with minimal effort.

Although Google made this announcement yesterday, there weren’t too many other details available. Today, though, Kristina Behr (Vice President, Product Management for Collaboration Apps, Google Workspace) conducted a Q&A with journalists at Cloud Next. She gave a bit more clarity on how Vids will work.

First, there is nothing locking content created with Vids to Workspace. In other words, if you were to create a video using Google Vids, you could then export it as an MP4 and use it anywhere. While Google has a long history of making its Workspace apps compatible with other systems, some users may have been concerned that Vids would be locked to Workspace. That will not be the case, though.

Here are a few other things Google confirmed for us about Vids:

• Length: There is no limit to how long a video can be. Google has found that three minutes is the “sweet spot” for length when used within Workspace apps, but users can decide how long a video will be.
• Content: The same Trust & Safety filters that apply to all other Google services also apply to Vids. That means using Vids to create illegal or obscene content would not be possible. However, there are no additional restrictions for Vids.
• Resolution: Unfortunately, Google would not confirm the resolution(s) for content created with Vids. Behr said the goal is to make videos look great, but the videos are intended for work, so super-high resolutions are not important at the moment. “This is not going to be the way Hollywood produces a video,” Behr said with a laugh.

Finally, Behr confirmed that Google intends to make Vids available to a much wider audience — eventually. “We are focused on Gemini [Enterprise for Workspace] users for now as our first push,” Behr said, “but I would love for us to think about ‘How do we satisfy all of our users?’ You know, Gemini consumer users and potentially broader.”

While we don’t know when a broader rollout could happen, we do know when Vids will be available for early adopters. Vids will roll out as a Labs tool within the Gemini Enterprise for Workspace SKU (currently $30 per month per user) in June, which means only paid users who opt-in will be able to use it. Then, Google will push Vids out of Labs and into the general premium Workspace field. After that, it will likely make Vids available to consumers, but there’s no telling how long that could take.

It’s likely we’ll hear even more about Vids — and maybe even get to see it really work — at Google I/O, which starts on May 14.