50 Cents Per Second: Google’s Bold New Bet on AI Video

Google has recently shared the cost details for its new video-generating AI, Veo 2, which first launched last December. According to Google’s pricing page, creating videos with Veo 2 costs 50 cents for every second of footage. In other words, it comes out to about $30 per minute or $1,800 for an hour of generated video.

To put this into perspective, Google DeepMind researcher Jon Barron pointed out that Marvel’s “Avengers: Endgame” had a production budget of $356 million—roughly translating to $32,000 per second of screen time. However, it’s worth noting that Veo 2 isn’t designed to produce feature-length films; it focuses on generating clips that are two minutes or longer. Plus, most users are unlikely to use every second they pay for.

In comparison, OpenAI has also jumped into the video generation space. Its Sora model is available as part of a ChatGPT Pro subscription, which costs $200 a month.

This pricing discussion highlights the evolving landscape of AI video production, where new models offer both cost-effective and innovative solutions for generating video content.