YouTube is testing an integration with parent company Google’s Gemini AI. Called Brainstorm with Gemini, it invites creators to ideate with video, titles and thumbnails. The limited test makes the feature available to a handful of creators whose feedback will be used in strategizing how and whether to introduce the feature more broadly. In May, YouTube began testing another AI tool, renaming its “Research” tab “Inspiration.” The Inspiration tool provides topics that its algorithm detects a creator’s audience might find interested, supplying an outline and talking points. Brainstorm is similar but supports Google’s AI branding. Continue reading YouTube Invites Content Creators to ‘Brainstorm with Gemini’

TikTok is widely launching its promotional discovery feature, TikTok Spotlight, which lets marketers tap into its vaunted “For You” feed. Movie studios, TV networks and streamers are invited to promote their products adjacent to For You feed content identified as having related interest. “TikTok Spotlight identifies applicable TikToks on our platform and attributes an anchor link” that “drives audiences to a dedicated landing page where they can discover more details,” like synopsis, cast, and user-generated content. Users can link to streaming platforms, digital storefronts or theater ticket sales “directly from the landing page.” Continue reading TikTok Spotlight Offers Studios, Networks New Marketing Tool

Google-owned video giant YouTube is experimenting with a new mid-roll advertising format that aims to be less disruptive for live-streaming viewers. YouTube is testing the new format, which positions ads alongside a live stream using a picture-in-picture feature. Currently, the ad breaks occupy the full screen, cutting abruptly from the content in progress, which can be disruptive. With the new format viewers can keep their eyes on live content during the ad break. YouTube’s mid-roll PiP ad tests are part of its fight against ad blockers, use of which has seen some viewers cut off from the platform. Continue reading YouTube Testing a New Ad Model for Live-Streaming Viewers

The Roku Sports Channel is a new 24/7 FAST channel launching Monday. Combining all the Roku premium sports offerings into “a dedicated, one-click, lean-back experience,” it will feature live Major League Baseball games with the MLB Sunday Leadoff game, Emmy-nominated talk show “The Rich Eisen Show,” NFL program “GMFB: Overtime,” live Formula E races, and sports-themed Roku Originals like “NFL Draft: The Pick Is In,” “WWE: Next Gen,” and “Fight Inc: Inside the UFC.” The channel will also feature exclusive partner content, such as classic boxing matches from Top Rank and combat competitions from Swerve Sports. Continue reading Roku Launching Dedicated FAST Sports Channel Next Week

Ahead of next week’s scheduled “Made by Google” event, which is expected to promote the company’s next generation of Pixel hardware and AI tools, Google is already unveiling new products, including a fourth-generation Nest Learning Thermostat with Matter support, and the anticipated 4K HDR Google TV Streamer — a $99.99 set-top box and successor to the Chromecast. The new entertainment hub — shipping September 24 — reportedly provides significantly better performance; integration with Google Home, Thread and Matter for improved connectivity across devices; and new Gemini AI functionality. Continue reading Gemini-Driven 4K Google TV Streamer Replaces Chromecast

AI media firm Runway has launched Gen-3 Alpha, building on the text-to-video model by using images to prompt realistic videos generated in seconds. Navigate to Runway’s web-based interface and click on “try Gen 3-Alpha” and you’ll land on a screen with an image uploader, as well as a text box for those who either prefer that approach or want to use natural language to tweak results. Runway lets users generate up to 10 seconds of contiguous video using a credit system. “Image to Video is major update that greatly improves the artistic control,” Runway said in an announcement. Continue reading Runway’s Gen-3 Alpha Creates Realistic Video from Still Image

Comscore announced this week it is rolling out comprehensive audience measurement and cross-platform video insights for YouTube traffic across desktop and mobile devices and connected TVs in the U.S. “This new capability enhances Comscore’s existing reporting for YouTube video traffic on desktop and mobile browsers, as well as in mobile apps,” the company explains. Comscore clients will now have access to Traffic Sharing in YouTube CTV measurement data, which includes viewership info about content distributed on YouTube to content creators. Data should help advertisers evaluate ad campaigns that incorporate YouTube. Continue reading Comscore Measures YouTube Audience Across Digital Devices

Graphic design company Canva announced it is acquiring fellow Australian startup Leonardo AI with plans to have Leonardo’s 120 employees, including executives, join the Canva AI team. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sydney-based Leonardo has been gaining attention for its advanced generative AI platform that helps users create images and art based on the open-source Stable Diffusion model developed by Stability AI. The Leonardo team claims its offering is different than other AI art platforms since it provides users with more control. Users can experiment with text prompts and quick sketches as Leonardo.ai creates photorealistic images in real time. Continue reading Canva Aims to Boost Its GenAI Efforts with Leonardo Purchase

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the latest version of computer vision platform SAM 2, an update on the company’s Segment Anything Model that automates for video what the original SAM did for still images — identifying the edges of an object and isolating it in the frame. Zuckerberg demonstrated SAM 2 as part of a SIGGRAPH 2024 keynote session in which he was interviewed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. “Being able to do this in video and have it be zero shot and tell it what you want, it’s pretty cool,” Zuckerberg said. Meta is sharing the code and model weights for SAM 2 with a permissive Apache 2.0 license. Continue reading Mark Zuckerberg Unveils SAM 2 AI Tech for Segmenting Video

Stability AI has unveiled an experimental new model, Stable Video 4D, which generates photorealistic 3D video. Building on what it created with Stable Video Diffusion, released in November, this latest model can take moving image data of an object and iterate it from multiple angles — generating up to eight different perspectives. Stable Video 4D can generate five frames across eight views in about 40 seconds using a single inference, according to the company, which says the model has “future applications in game development, video editing, and virtual reality.” Users begin by uploading a single video and specifying desired 3D camera poses. Continue reading Stable Video 4D Adds Time Dimension to Generative Imagery

Alphabet announced that its revenue was up 14 percent to $84.7 billion in Q2, slightly outperforming expectations. Profits rose 29 percent to $23.6 billion, beating analyst targets by $900 million. Search continued to be a top performer, generating $48.5 billion in the three-month period ending June 30, while Google advertising was up 10.5 percent to $64.6 billion. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company’s cloud and generative AI solutions “are being used by more than 2 million developers.” The Google Cloud services unit surpassed the $10 billion quarterly revenue mark for the first time. “We are innovating at every layer of the AI stack,” Pichai added. Continue reading Alphabet Reports Q2 Profits Jump 29 Percent to $23.6 Billion

Amazon Prime Video is releasing a newly redesigned app that promises to bring “clarity and simplicity back to streaming” with AI-powered improvements to navigation, personalization, purchases and recommendations. Among other upgrades, the app makes it easier to quickly identify movies and series that are available to Prime members at no additional cost. Prime members had been lobbying for a brighter line between what is included with a subscription and what comes with an additional cost. A global rollout began this week, and eventually the app will be available to all Prime Video customers. Continue reading Responding to Members, Prime Video Updates User Interface

Streaming rose to 40.3 percent in June, setting a record as it nudged past the previous single-category high point of 40.1, set by cable in June 2021. The percentage marks the highest share of TV ever reported in the three years since Nielsen debuted its monthly measurement report The Gauge. Google’s YouTube and Fox’s Tubi both claimed personal bests, respectively hitting 9.9 and 2.0 percent of TV viewing. Four streaming platforms achieved double-digit usage growth: Disney+ (+14.8 percent), Tubi (+14.7 percent), Netflix (+11.8 percent) and Max (+11.0 percent) — each with 20 percent or more of that growth attributable to younger viewers. Continue reading Nielsen: Streaming Reps 40 Percent Share of June TV Viewing

Netflix reported that its popular streaming service has added 8.05 million subscribers during Q2, a healthy gain from 5.89 million newcomers during the same period a year earlier. The streamer’s total of more than 277 million worldwide customers makes it by far the largest subscription service of its kind. Revenue climbed to $9.56 billion, a nearly 17 percent second quarter gain that outperformed its own projections. Subscriptions on the ad-supported tier grew 34 percent compared to Q1. Amidst upheaval in more traditional media environs, Netflix seems to be gliding along, closing Thursday with a market valuation of $277 billion. Continue reading Netflix Reports Q2 Subscriber Growth as Revenue Tops $9.5B

Google has launched the beta version of its Gemini-powered Google Vids productivity app, which lets users create work-related video presentations that embed documents, slides, audio recordings and even additional videos into a timeline. Incorporated into Workspace Labs, Google’s AI preview space, Google says invited participants can use Vids to “build a narrative with high quality templates” or “get to a first draft faster.” Access to Google’s royalty-free stock content library and Vids recording studio means a project can be completed “without ever leaving Workspace,” according to the company. Continue reading Gemini Powering Google Vids Multimedia Presentation Builder