After my recent experiment with Claude.AI to rewrite a blog post, I've been thinking about AI's role in content creation more broadly. While written posts work well for some audiences, I know many people prefer consuming content through video. This led me to question whether AI could help bridge that gap by transforming my written Substack posts into video content.
Enter Google Vids and its new AI-powered "Help Me Create" feature, which promises to automatically generate videos from existing content. As someone with limited experience creating videos from scratch, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to test whether AI could lower the barrier to video content creation for me.
Why Google Vids?
Google Vids is primarily designed for workplace use cases—customer support, project management, and marketing according to its website. However, the feature that caught my attention was its ability to work directly with content stored in Google Drive. Since I already draft my blog posts in Google Docs, the integration seemed seamless.
The tool is included with Google Workspace business plans and accessible at workspace.google.com/products/vids.
The AI Video Creation Process
The workflow is surprisingly straightforward. Google Vids can import content directly from a Google Doc, then automatically:
Creates a storyboard based on your written content
Suggests video templates that match your content type
Generates a script adapted for video format
Selects relevant video clips from stock footage
Produces default narration using AI voice synthesis
The entire initial video generation took less than five minutes—remarkable considering I started with just a text document.
What Worked Well
The interface should feel familiar to anyone who has used Google Slides. The AI did a decent job of identifying key points from my blog post and structuring them into a logical video sequence. The automatic script generation was particularly impressive, taking my written paragraphs and adapting them into streamlined, video-appropriate copy.
Where AI Fell Short
However, the automatically-generated video felt a bit impersonal to me. I felt that the AI struggled to capture my personal tone. The stock footage selections, while technically relevant, didn't capture the specific context of my original post.
Three specific issues stood out:
The AI voice narration lacked the conversational tone I try to convey in my writing
Stock video clips were too generic and didn't match my personal experiences
The outline seemed like a corporate slide presentation and not a personal narrative
My Customizations
To address these issues at least in part, I made three manual modifications:
1. Recorded a personal narration: I replaced the AI-generated voice with my own recording. I hope this made the rest of the video feel just a bit more authentic.
2. Added a custom intro video clip: I filmed a brief intro segment to at least set the stage that this was my creation. I did disclose in my recorded introduction that this video was done by AI, as I always try to disclose when I am using AI.
3. Chose alternate stock footage: I replaced one of Google's chosen stock clips with different footage that better conveyed “dicking around.”
These last three steps took a bit of work on my part, but I think they at least got the video to the point where I felt comfortable to share it.
Key Takeaways
This experiment revealed both the promise and limitations of AI video creation for me.
The Good: AI can dramatically reduce the technical barriers to video creation. The automatic storyboarding and script writing saved me hours of work I would have spent figuring out how to get this down to a 3½ minute piece.
The Challenging: AI might not be the most appropriate for personal storytelling. I think the technology is well-suited for informational content but needs to be tweaked to capture personality.
The Practical: For content creators who have avoided video because of technical complexity, I think AI tools like Google Vids provide a viable starting point. However, I would recommend setting aside a good amount of time to customize generated videos to personalize them.
What's Next
I'm planning to compare this experience with Microsoft Copilot's video creation capabilities, as I also have access to Microsoft 365. I'm particularly curious whether different AI platforms have varying strengths in making content feel more “personal.”
My wish list for future AI video tools includes:
Better understanding of personal writing style and tone
More sophisticated stock footage selection based on context, not just keywords
Storyboards that feel less like corporate presentations
For now, Google Vids has shown me that AI can be a valuable collaborator in video creation—not as a replacement for a good human video producer, but as a tool that can streamline some of the technical groundwork. For me, it’s possible that tools like this might reduce the barrier enough for me to create videos. I’ll keep playing with this stuff!
Have you experimented with AI video creation tools? If so, I’d love to hear your comments!
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