Google Photos' new AI tool creates montage videos in seconds

Highlights videos summing up moments of a holiday, weekend or a whole month or year have become a popular format on social media. Now Google Photos has just launched an effortless way to create them using a new AI-powered tool. The best video editing software have no reason to tremble, but it will be a welcome advance for many users.

Google Photos has already been using AI to hit users with its own sometimes rather random compilations of recent footage, but it's now allowing users to specify what they want to include. A demo video posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter shows how users can create highlight videos starting from a search prompt. The app searches for relevant photos and videos based on the terms entered and combines whatever it thinks are the best pieces into a short video complete with background music.

In the example video, Google performs a search for 'Japan 2023' and receives back an edited video of scenes from a recent trip. The Google Photos Highlight videos tool builds on its Movies feature but simplifies things by using AI to find the content for you, saving users from having to manually select the photos and videos they want to include.

It could be a welcome tool for users who are in a hurry and don't care massively about the curation of their video. However, I'm not sure I would trust it to always choose the best footage, and it doesn't seem to have the ability to automatically choose content with appropriate dimensions (or to resize pieces to avoid black borders that don't fit). 

Considering the amount of tools coming out that allow resizing and even generative expansion of images that could be a development for a future iteration. You can, however, trim and rearrange the clips chosen or swap the music, so the automatic tool could be considered as a quick way to get started before polishing the video.

Google says the new Google Photos Highlight feature has started rolling out on both Android and iOS. After updating, users should be able to find it by hitting a plus icon that should appear at the top of the gallery. 'Highlight video' should appear along with existing tools like Animation and Collage.

For more recent developments in AI tech in video and photography, see the news on the Shutterstock AI image editor and the new Amazon AI image generator. we also have a roundup of the best AI image generators.