What if you could turn your wildest imagination into stunning, cinematic reality just by typing a sentence? Google’s latest innovation is making that possible. Welcome to the complete beginner’s Google Veo 3 tutorial, where we’ll walk you through exactly how to use this mind-blowing AI video generator, from your first prompt to your final masterpiece.

Google just released Veo 3, an AI video tool that transforms simple text prompts into high-quality, cinematic videos. In this guide, we’ll cover how to get started, write effective prompts, and unlock the most powerful features of this game-changing technology—even if you’re brand new to AI video creation.

Table of Contents

1. What is Google Veo 3?
2. How to Get Access to Google Veo 3
3. How to Use Google Veo 3: A Step-by-Step Guide
4. Advanced Prompting: Let Gemini Be Your Creative Partner
5. How to Find and Download Your Generated Videos
6. Final Thoughts: The Future is Here

What is Google Veo 3?

Veo 3 is Google’s latest and most advanced AI video generation model, developed by the brilliant minds at DeepMind. It allows you to create incredibly polished videos from nothing more than a text prompt.

Unlike many other AI tools, Veo 3 has a deep understanding of cinematic language. It comprehends concepts like:

• Camera Movement: Specify drone shots, slow pans, or time-lapses.
• Lighting & Composition: Describe the mood with terms like “dramatic lighting,” “golden hour,” or “eerie twilight.”
• Visual Styles: Generate everything from photorealistic scenes to animated shorts.

But what truly sets it apart is its ability to generate a complete audio-visual experience. Veo 3 doesn’t just create silent clips; it automatically adds background music, ambient sound effects, and even voice narration that matches the scene, making the results feel incredibly natural and complete.

How to Get Access to Google Veo 3

To use Veo 3, you need a paid Google One AI Premium plan. The good news is that you can get a free trial for the first month, giving you a chance to explore everything this powerful tool can do.

Both the Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra plans include access to Veo 3. In addition to video generation, these plans bundle other premium features like advanced Gemini capabilities directly in Google Docs and Gmail, plus a massive 2TB of cloud storage.

How to Use Google Veo 3: A Step-by-Step Guide

Once you’ve signed up for a plan, this part of our Google Veo 3 tutorial will show you just how easy it is to start creating.

1. Go to Gemini: Head over to gemini.google.com and sign in with your Google account.
2. Activate the Video Tool: At the bottom of the chat interface, you’ll see a prompt field. Below it, click on the tool labeled “Video”. This activates Veo 3 for your next prompt.
3. Write Your Prompt: This is where the magic happens. Be as descriptive as possible. The more detail you provide, the closer the result will be to your vision. For example:A cinematic slow-motion shot of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies being pulled out of the oven in a cozy, sunlit kitchen. Warm lighting, soft focus, steam rising, and gentle background music.
4. Submit and Generate: Hit the submit button and let Veo 3 work its magic. In a short time, your video will be ready to view!

Adding Narration to Your Videos

One of Veo 3’s coolest features is adding custom narration. To do this, simply include the word Narration: in your prompt, followed by the text you want spoken enclosed in quotation marks.

For example: ...Narration: "History is being made — the Kevin Cookie Company unveils the world’s largest chocolate chip cookie."

Veo will generate a fitting voice to speak your lines, complete with appropriate background music and sound effects, creating a truly impressive final product.

Advanced Prompting: Let Gemini Be Your Creative Partner

Not sure how to phrase your prompt to get that epic, cinematic feel? Just ask Gemini for help!

Since Veo 3 is integrated into Gemini, you can use the same chat interface to brainstorm and refine your ideas. Before activating the video tool, simply ask Gemini for help. For example, you could type:

"Can you help me write a cinematic video prompt about a team of bakers making the world’s largest cookie?"

Gemini will provide you with several detailed options, including suggestions for strong adjectives (epic, colossal), camera shots (close-up, wide shot), lighting, and sound. You can then copy, paste, and tweak these suggestions to create the perfect prompt. It’s a fantastic trick to get the best results.

 “For more great tips, check out our other AI How-To’s & Tricks.”

How to Find and Download Your Generated Videos

If you ever want to revisit a video you created earlier, it’s incredibly simple.

On the left-hand side of the Gemini interface, you’ll see a list of your “Recent” chats. Simply click on the chat conversation where you generated the video. The video will be right there in the chat history.

To download it, hover your mouse over the video, and a download icon will appear in the top-right corner. Click it to save an MP4 file of your creation directly to your computer.

Final Thoughts: The Future is Here

With tools like Google Veo 3, we’ve officially entered an era where professional-quality video creation is accessible to everyone. The line between what’s real and what’s generated by AI is becoming increasingly blurry.

As you start your journey with this incredible tool, you’ll unlock a new level of creative freedom. So go ahead, give it a try, and see what you can bring to life from your imagination.

The Attention Economy Shift: ChatGPT’s App Downloads Threaten Social Media Giants

In a surprising turn of events, the application for OpenAI’s ChatGPT is on the verge of eclipsing the combined iOS downloads of social media titans like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. This isn’t just a fleeting trend; it signals a fundamental shift in user behavior. Users are migrating from passive “doomscrolling” on entertainment platforms to engaging with intelligent tools that boost their productivity.

According to data from Similarweb, OpenAI’s tool has garnered 29 million installs compared to the 33 million for the dominant social trio. This trend shows that deep value is now challenging viral reach. We are witnessing the dawn of a new era where the center of digital gravity is shifting from mere content consumption to the adoption of smart, productive tools. For more analysis on AI’s impact, you can explore our Future of AI & Trends section.

New Research Agents Break Records

The race for the most powerful research agent is heating up, with a new contender from China making waves.

Kimi Researcher: The New Benchmark King

Moonshot AI’s new research agent, Kimi Researcher, has shattered records on the “Humanity’s Last Exam” (HLE) benchmark, scoring an impressive 26.9%. This performance surpasses established models like Google’s Gemini Deep Research and OpenAI’s DeepSearch. Kimi’s success lies in its sophisticated training, utilizing end-to-end agentic Reinforcement Learning (RL). The agent performs 23 reasoning steps and explores over 200 links for a single task, showcasing its depth. In our test, it provided a highly detailed and well-structured report on global investment opportunities, proving its powerful analytical capabilities.

A Prompt to Create Your Own Research Agent for Free

You don’t need a paid tool to get powerful, web-enabled research. We’re sharing an exclusive prompt that transforms any free LLM with search capabilities (like the free version of Gemini) into a dedicated research agent. This technique, which we use to gather our weekly AI news, automates comprehensive research without the filler. You can find this powerful prompt in our AI How-To’s & Tricks section (coming soon!).

Google Shakes Up the Developer World with Gemini CLI

In a strategic move set to redefine the developer landscape, Google has launched the Gemini CLI. This open-source, command-line interface (CLI) tool puts the immense power of Gemini models directly into a developer’s terminal—completely free of charge. This move is a direct challenge to paid tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex.

The Gemini CLI is not just another addition; it’s a competitive weapon. It offers:

• Integration with Google Search for web-enabled queries.
• Direct interaction with local files and command execution.
• An enormous 1 million token context window, allowing it to process entire codebases.

This launch democratizes access to top-tier AI coding assistance, raising the bar for competitors and putting immense pressure on their paid business models.

Controversies and High Stakes in the AI Race

Elon Musk’s “History Sieving” Project

Elon Musk recently unveiled a new, and frankly alarming, project for xAI. The goal is to use Grok 3.5 to “sieve” the entire corpus of human knowledge—all written information available online—to correct errors and fill in missing information. While the stated aim is to create a refined knowledge base, the project raises a critical question: Who gets to define “truth”? The idea of a single entity curating human history and knowledge is deeply problematic, as what one group considers a myth, another may hold as a foundational belief. This project is one of the most concerning pieces of weekly AI news we’ve encountered.

Apple Faces Fraud Lawsuit Over Siri

Apple is now facing a class-action lawsuit from shareholders accusing the company of fraud. The plaintiffs allege that Apple’s leadership, including Tim Cook, knowingly exaggerated Siri’s AI capabilities and misled investors about the timeline for its integration. This gap between the company’s grand promises and the technical reality has allegedly cost the company approximately $900 billion in market value. The case highlights the immense pressure in the AI race, which can lead major players to make costly, overblown claims.

More Groundbreaking AI Updates

• Perplexity Video Generation: Perplexity now allows free video generation directly on X (formerly Twitter) using the VEO-3 model. Simply mention their account @AskPerplexity in a tweet with your prompt.
• FLUX.1 Kontekt [dev] Release: Black Forest Labs has released an incredibly powerful open-source image editing model that outperforms giants like Google and OpenAI while maintaining facial identity.
• AlphaGenome by DeepMind: This revolutionary AI model can predict the likelihood of diseases by “reading” DNA sequences. It represents a massive leap from reactive medicine to proactive, predictive healthcare.
• ElevenLabs Voice Design V3: Creating custom, expressive AI voices is now easier than ever. This new tool allows users to generate voices with specific emotions like crying, laughing, and even singing, simply from a text prompt.

OpenAI is rolling out new ChatGPT features at a dizzying pace, making it tough to keep up, let alone figure out which updates are actually useful. Between “reasoning models,” “deep research,” and “canvas,” it’s easy to get lost in meaningless jargon. This guide cuts through the noise and gives you a simple framework to understand the most crucial new updates, starting with the difference between Chat Models and the powerful new ChatGPT Reasoning Models.

We’ll show you exactly when to use each feature with practical, real-world examples, so you can stop wasting time and start getting better results from AI.

Choosing the Correct ChatGPT Model: The #1 Most Important Update

The most significant recent change in ChatGPT is the introduction of distinct model types. While the names and numbers (like oX, o-mini, GPT-4o) change quickly, the core concept is what matters: knowing when you need a Chat Model versus a Reasoning Model.

The Simple Rule: Chat vs. Reasoning Models

Here’s the only rule you need to remember. Ask yourself one question: “Is my task important or hard?”

• If the answer is YES (the task is complex, high-stakes, or requires deep thought), use a Reasoning Model (e.g., oX). You might wait a few extra seconds, but the quality of the answer is worth the trade-off.
• If the answer is NO (the task is simple, low-stakes, and you need a fast response), use a Chat Model (e.g., GPT-4o).

Think of it like choosing a partner: pick the one with the cleanest name (like oX) and avoid the ones with extra baggage at the end (like oX-mini). The models with simpler names are generally the most powerful reasoning engines.

Real-World Examples: When to Use a Chat Model

A Chat Model is perfect for low-stakes tasks where speed is more important than perfect accuracy.

Example 1: Basic Fact-Finding
Prompt: “Which fruits have the most fiber?”
For this, a chat model is perfect. It will give you a quick, helpful list. We don’t really care if one of the numbers is off by a single gram.

Example 2: Finding a Quote
Prompt: “Who was the guy who said ‘success is never final’ or something like that?”
The chat model will quickly identify this quote is widely attributed to Winston Churchill and provide the full context.

Real-World Examples: When to Use a Reasoning Model

For any task that requires nuance, multi-step thinking, or high-quality output, a Reasoning Model is your best bet. These models “think through” the problem before giving an answer.

Example 1: Complex, Multi-Constraint Task
Prompt: “Act as a nutritionist and create a vegetarian breakfast with at least 15 grams of fiber and 20 grams of protein.”
This is a hard task with multiple requirements. A reasoning model will analyze the constraints, calculate the nutritional values, and provide a detailed, accurate meal plan, including a grocery list.

Example 2: Nuanced Historical Analysis
Prompt: “Act as a British Historian. Explain why Winston Churchill was ousted even after winning a world war.”
This question requires deep, nuanced understanding. A reasoning model will break down the complex socio-economic factors, political landscape, and public sentiment to provide a comprehensive analysis that a simple chat model couldn’t.

Example 3: High-Stakes Email Drafting
While a simple email can be handled by a chat model, what about a messy, 20-message email thread where a stakeholder is upset? You should use a reasoning model. You can upload the entire thread as a PDF and ask it to “Write a super polite email explaining why this is a terrible idea.” The model’s ability to reason through the context and sentiment is critical for a diplomatic reply.

Internal Link Suggestion: To learn more about getting the most out of AI, check out our other guides in the AI How-To’s & Tricks section.

Pro-Tips for Prompting ChatGPT Reasoning Models

To get the best results from these advanced models, follow these three tips:

1. Use Delimiters: Separate your instructions from the content you want analyzed. For example, put your instructions under a ## TASK ## heading and the text or data under a ## DOCUMENT ## heading. This helps the model differentiate what you want it to do from what it should analyze.
2. Don’t Include “Think Step-by-Step”: This phrase is a crutch for older chat models. Reasoning models already do this by default, and including the phrase can actually hurt their performance.
3. Examples Are Optional: This is counter-intuitive, but reasoning models excel at “zero-shot” prompting (giving instructions with no examples). Only add examples if you’re getting wrong or undesirable results and need to guide the model more specifically.

Mastering Other Powerful ChatGPT Features

Beyond choosing the right model, here’s how to leverage other key ChatGPT features.

When to Use ChatGPT Search vs. Google Search

The trap here is forgetting that Google Search still exists and is often better. Here’s the rule:

• For a single fact (e.g., stock price, weather today): Use Google Search. It’s faster.
• For a fact with a quick explainer: Use ChatGPT Search. For example, instead of just asking for NVIDIA’s stock price, ask: “When was NVIDIA’s latest earnings call? Did the stock go up or down? Why?” ChatGPT will provide the stock chart and a detailed analysis of the context.

How to Use ChatGPT Deep Research Effectively

Deep Research is like an autonomous agent that spends 10-20 minutes browsing dozens of links to produce a detailed, cited report on a topic. It’s perfect for when you need to synthesize information from many sources.

Instead of manually researching NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel’s earnings reports, you could use Deep Research with this prompt: “Analyze and compare the AI chip roadmaps for these three companies based on their latest earnings calls.”

Pro-Tip: Deep Research works best with comprehensive prompts. To save time, use a custom GPT to generate a detailed prompt template for you.

External Link Suggestion: This Deep Research Prompt Generator GPT by Reddit user u/Tall_Ad4729 is a fantastic starting point.

Unlocking the ChatGPT Canvas Feature

The rule for Canvas is simple: Toggle it on if you know you’re going to edit and build upon ChatGPT’s response more than once.

It’s ideal for tasks like drafting a performance review. You can upload a document (like a performance rubric), ask ChatGPT to draft an initial outline, and then edit it in the standalone Canvas window. You can fill in your achievements, delete sections, and even ask ChatGPT to make in-line edits, such as rephrasing a sentence or generating an executive summary based on the content you’ve added. Once finished, you can download the final document in PDF, DOCX, or Markdown format.

Bonus: My 3 Favorite Text-to-Text Commands

For any text-generation task, keep these three powerful command words in your back pocket:

1. Elaborate: Use this to add more detail. “Elaborate on these 3 bullet points.”
2. Critique: Use this to spot problems early and pressure-test your ideas. “I’m arguing for more headcount based on this data; critique my approach.”
3. Rewrite: Use this to improve previous content. “Rewrite the second paragraph using a friendly tone of voice.”

By understanding when to use ChatGPT Reasoning Models and leveraging these advanced features, you can significantly improve the quality and efficiency of your AI-powered work.