Google is launching a cost-effective version of its Veo 3 AI video generator, Veo 3.1 Lite, the company announced Tuesday, highlighting Google's renewed commitment to all forms of generative AI. 

Google says that its latest addition will round out the Veo product family to give developers flexibility based on their needs. The company says the new model will cost 50% less than Veo 3.1 Fast while retaining the same speed. And like all the Veo 3 models, Veo 3.1 Lite will support audio within the videos. 

A representative for Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Veo 3.1 Lite offers an assortment of features, including text-to-video and image-to-video, along with 16:9 and 9:16 aspect ratios, and video resolution up to 1080p. Veo 3.1 Lite doesn't support 4K resolutions like other models, something that may disappoint creators making professional-grade videos. The blog post also points out that developers can customize video duration at 4,6, or 8 seconds, and costs will adjust accordingly. 

The rollout of Veo 3.1 Lite began on Tuesday and is accessible to developers through the paid tier of the Gemini API and Google AI Studio, including Google's filmmaking studio, Flow. 

The timing of this release is telling. Last week, OpenAI -- one of Google's biggest competitors in the AI space -- announced it would be shutting down its video generation app, Sora. Sora was a unique offering because it was both a social media app and an AI video creation tool. 

Google's Veo 3.1 Lite highlights that the tech giant is not stepping away from generative media, but instead, is looking for ways to make creating AI images and videos cheaper. OpenAI's official statement said it was sunsetting Sora to reprioritize core goals, but AI video is a compute-intensive process, which makes it expensive for AI companies to run.

In addition to Veo 3.1 Lite, Google is also updating pricing for the Veo 3.1 Fast model. The new pricing will be available "soon," according to the developer documentation.

Veo 3.1 pricing

Making it cheaper to run AI is not just a concern for individual developers but also for the entire industry.