Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI analysis group DeepMind, appeared to counsel Tuesday night that Veo 3, Google’s newest video-generating mannequin, might doubtlessly be used for video video games.
In response to a submit on X beseeching Google to “Let me play a online game of my veo 3 movies already,” and asking, “playable world fashions wen?” Hassabis responded, “now wouldn’t that be one thing.”
On Wednesday morning, Logan Kilpatrick, lead product for Google’s AI Studio and Gemini API, chimed in with a reply: “🤐🤐🤐🤐”
Each posts from the Google executives are little greater than playful strategies, and a Google spokesperson instructed TechCrunch the corporate had nothing to share in the meanwhile. However constructing playable world fashions isn’t exterior the realm of prospects for the tech big.
World fashions are totally different from video-generation fashions. The previous simulates the dynamics of a real-world setting, which lets brokers predict how the world will evolve in response to their actions. Video-gen fashions synthesize real looking video sequences.
Google has plans to show its multimodal basis mannequin, Gemini 2.5 Professional, right into a world mannequin that simulates elements of the human mind. In December, DeepMind unveiled Genie 2, a mannequin that may generate an “limitless” number of playable worlds. The next month, we reported that Google was forming a brand new workforce to work on AI fashions that may simulate the true world.
Others are engaged on constructing world fashions — most notably, AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li. Li got here out of stealth final yr with World Labs, a startup that has constructed its personal AI system that generates video game-like, 3D scenes from a single picture.
Veo 3, which continues to be in public preview, can create video in addition to audio to associate with clips — something from speech to soundtracks. Whereas Veo 3 creates real looking actions by simulating real-world physics, it isn’t fairly a world mannequin but. As an alternative, it could possibly be used for cinematic storytelling in video games, like cutscenes, trailers, and narrative prototyping
The mannequin can be nonetheless a “passive output” generative mannequin, and it (or a future Veo technology) would want to shift to a simulator that’s extra lively, interactive, and predictive.
However the true problem with online game manufacturing isn’t simply spectacular visuals; it’s real-time, constant, and controllable simulation. That’s why it would make sense to see Google take a hybrid strategy that leverages Veo and Genie sooner or later, ought to it pursue online game or playable world improvement.
Google might discover itself competing with Microsoft, Situation, Runway, Pika, and, finally, OpenAI’s video-generating mannequin Sora.
Given Google’s deliberate strikes on the planet fashions area and its repute for utilizing its deep pockets and distribution muscle to steamroll rivals, rivals on this area can be smart to maintain a detailed watch.
