Google Vids makes 1080p AI video free for any account

Google Vids now makes 1080p video for free on any Google account, which turns the company's newest video model into the cheapest way to try frontier AI video in a browser. The change landed in a Google Workspace announcement on September 23, 2026, and it lifts the paid wall that had kept Vids' generation features behind Google AI subscriptions.

What changed in Google Vids

Vids now generates video with Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash at no cost for anyone with a Google or Google Workspace account. Justin Luk, a product manager for Google Vids, wrote in the announcement that access has expanded so people can create high-quality clips "without professional editing skills or a big budget." Before this, video generation inside Vids sat behind Google's paid AI plans, and the free tier gave a small monthly allowance of generations rather than open access to the current model.

The model doing the work is Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash, the video generation and editing model Google ships through the Gemini API and Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. Google describes Omni as a multimodal system that takes text, images, video and audio as input and produces video with sound.

Three controls come with the free access, and they are the practical part of the release. A scene can be extended with a transition while keeping lighting, character appearance and environment consistent. A clip can be given an exact duration, so it lines up with a voiceover or a music bed. And new scenes can be generated in full 1080p, or existing AI clips upscaled to sit alongside them in a timeline.

How to make a free video in Google Vids

Open vids.new on a desktop browser and choose "Create AI videos." That tile is where Omni 1.1 generation starts. From there the workflow is prompt-first: describe the scene, pick the duration you need, and generate. Google's announcement points to ready-made templates for a product launch, and suggests using photographs of new stock to build a promo video.

The tool is a video editor with generation inside it rather than a generator alone, so the output lands on a timeline you can extend, retime and export. Google's post frames the audience broadly: a side project launching a product, a local business owner turning photos into a promo, an enterprise marketing team filling a landing page, a community group promoting an event.

What the free tier actually includes

Free means the generation, with Google's SynthID watermark on every clip. Luk's post states that each clip generated with Omni 1.1 in Google Vids carries an imperceptible SynthID watermark embedded into the video frames, so viewers can verify the footage was generated with AI. That is a condition of the free tier rather than an option, and it is worth knowing before you plan a deliverable: a watermarked frame is detectable, though Google describes the mark as imperceptible to the eye.

Google's announcement does not state a monthly generation cap for free accounts, nor a resolution ceiling beyond 1080p for the free path. The post directs people who want more AI video generation on a personal account to Google's AI plans, and says Workspace Business and Enterprise plans include expanded generation pools with centralized admin controls. Anyone budgeting around the free tier should treat the limits as unpublished rather than unlimited.

What it does not do

Vids is a browser editor for scenes, not a filmmaking suite. Google's own description covers single generated scenes, extension, exact durations and upscaling, which is a narrower set of controls than the camera paths, motion brush and multi-shot storyboards the dedicated video models sell. Omni 1.1's own developer documentation lists 1080p and 4K output under "Upscale up to 4K resolution," so a 1080p export is an enlargement of a smaller generation rather than a natively rendered frame.

There is also no published free path to Omni through the Gemini API. Free access here runs through the Vids product on a Google account, which means the terms, the watermark and the caps are Vids' terms rather than the API's.

What comes next

Google says voiceovers are coming to Vids, driven by Gemini 3.8 Flash-Lite text-to-speech. Luk's post says the feature will turn any script into narration across more than 100 languages, which would close the last gap between a text script and a finished clip inside the browser. Google has not given a date for it.

The wider pattern is worth watching. Google has now put a current-generation video model in front of every account it has, at no charge, with a provenance watermark baked in, while the paid tiers sell volume rather than access.

Vids with Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash is available now at vids.new on desktop for anyone with a Google or Google Workspace account.