YouTube has taken a significant leap in the short-form video space by introducing AI-generated video backgrounds for its Shorts feature. This innovation is made possible by the integration of Google DeepMind's AI video generation model, Veo, which can produce 1080p video clips in various cinematic styles.

With this new capability, users can now create immersive video backgrounds using text prompts, such as "candy landscape" or "magical forest with a stream." The Dream Screen tool generates a series of video backgrounds, allowing users to pick their preferred option and record a video with it as the background.

This feature gives YouTube Shorts creators an edge over TikTok users, as the latter platform currently only offers AI-powered background images. YouTube plans to further enhance the feature by allowing creators to generate six-second-long standalone video clips for Shorts in the future. The AI-generated video backgrounds are now available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.