YouTube has officially announced the new AI-driven creation tools for generating the unique and best Shorts, according to a recent blog post by the platform.

The new features include a Photo to video converter, generative effects, and access to an AI playground for experimenting with creative outputs.

Photo to video tool

The Photo to video tool allows users to transform still images from their camera roll into animated Shorts. Users can select a photo and apply creative suggestions that add motion, such as animating landscapes, objects or group pictures.

This feature is being rolled out across the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with more regions expected to follow later in the year. For your information, it is available for free.

Both the Photo to video and generative effects are powered by Google’s Veo 2 technology. YouTube said Veo 3 would be integrated into Shorts later this summer.

The feature is currently available in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and can be accessed by tapping the create button, followed by the sparkle icon.

YouTube noted that AI-generated content will include SynthID watermarks and clear labels to indicate that it was created using artificial intelligence.

According to the blog post, the new tools are designed to make the creative process more accessible, while preserving transparency about AI use in content creation.

Google has officially released a series of updates to Firebase Studio aimed at expanding its AI development capabilities and deepening integration with popular frameworks and Firebase services.

For your information, the released features were unveiled at I/O Connect India.

At the core of the update are AI-optimised templates for Flutter, Angular, React, Next.js, and general Web projects. These templates enable developers to build applications in Firebase Studio using Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, with the workspace defaulting to an autonomous Agent mode.

“We’re unveiling new updates that help you combine the power of Gemini with these new features to go from idea to app using some of your favourite frameworks and languages,” said Vikas Anand, director of product management at Google.

Firebase Studio now supports direct prompting of Gemini to integrate backend services. Developers using App Prototyping Agent or an AI-optimised template can simply describe the desired functionality, and Gemini will recommend and incorporate relevant Firebase services, including adding libraries, modifying code, and assisting with configuration.

“You can get assistance from Gemini to help you plan and execute tasks independently without waiting for step-by-step approval,” said Jeanine Banks, vice president and general manager, Developer X at Google.

Nvidia reportedly plans to resume sales to China that’s become part of a global race pitting the world’s biggest economies against each other. The company’s announcement on Monday comes after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang met with President Donald Trump at the White House last week.

AMD AI Chip Plan For China

AMD also planning to restart sales of its AI chips to China. “We were recently informed by the Department of Commerce that license applications to export MI308 products to China will be moving forward for review,” the company said in a statement to CNN. “We plan to resume shipments as licenses are approved. We applaud the progress made by the Trump Administration in advancing trade negotiations and its commitment to US AI leadership.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg in an interview Tuesday that the Nvidia export controls have been a “negotiating chip” in the larger US-China trade talks, in which the two countries have made a deal to lower tariffs charged on one another.

The same day Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the resumption of Nvidia’s AI chip sales to China was part of the trade agreement with Beijing on rare earths. “We put that in the trade deal with the magnets,” he told Reuters, referring to rare earth magnets.

“In order for America to be the world leader, just like we want the world to be built on the American dollar, using the American dollar as a global standard, we want the American tech stack to be the global standard,” Huang told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview that aired Sunday. “We love that the internet is created by American technology and is built on American technology, and so we should continue to aspire to that.”