---

summary: "Unified landing page for media generation, understanding, and speech capabilities"

summary: "Image, video, music, speech, and media-understanding capabilities at a glance"

read_when:

- Looking for an overview of media capabilities

- Looking for an overview of OpenClaw's media capabilities

- Deciding which media provider to configure

- Understanding how async media generation works

title: "Media overview"

sidebarTitle: "Media overview"

---

# Media Generation and Understanding

OpenClaw generates images, videos, and music, understands inbound media (images, audio, video), and speaks replies aloud with text-to-speech. All media capabilities are tool-driven: the agent decides when to use them based on the conversation, and each tool only appears when at least one backing provider is configured.

## Capabilities at a glance

| Capability | Tool | Providers | What it does |

| -------------------- | ---------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- |

| Image generation | `image_generate` | ComfyUI, fal, Google, MiniMax, OpenAI, Vydra, xAI | Creates or edits images from text prompts or references |

| Video generation | `video_generate` | Alibaba, BytePlus, ComfyUI, fal, Google, MiniMax, OpenAI, Qwen, Runway, Together, Vydra, xAI | Creates videos from text, images, or existing videos |

| Music generation | `music_generate` | ComfyUI, Google, MiniMax | Creates music or audio tracks from text prompts |

| Text-to-speech (TTS) | `tts` | ElevenLabs, Google, Gradium, Local CLI, Microsoft, MiniMax, OpenAI, Vydra, xAI, Xiaomi MiMo | Converts outbound replies to spoken audio |

| Media understanding | (automatic) | Any vision/audio-capable model provider, plus CLI fallbacks | Summarizes inbound images, audio, and video |

OpenClaw generates images, videos, and music, understands inbound media

(images, audio, video), and speaks replies aloud with text-to-speech. All

media capabilities are tool-driven: the agent decides when to use them based

on the conversation, and each tool only appears when at least one backing

provider is configured.

## Capabilities

<CardGroup cols={2}>

<Card title="Image generation" href="/tools/image-generation" icon="image">

Create and edit images from text prompts or reference images via

`image_generate`. Synchronous — completes inline with the reply.

</Card>

<Card title="Video generation" href="/tools/video-generation" icon="video">

Text-to-video, image-to-video, and video-to-video via `video_generate`.

Async — runs in the background and posts the result when ready.

</Card>

<Card title="Music generation" href="/tools/music-generation" icon="music">

Generate music or audio tracks via `music_generate`. Async on shared

providers; ComfyUI workflow path runs synchronously.

</Card>

<Card title="Text-to-speech" href="/tools/tts" icon="microphone">

Convert outbound replies to spoken audio via the `tts` tool plus

`messages.tts` config. Synchronous.

</Card>

<Card title="Media understanding" href="/nodes/media-understanding" icon="eye">

Summarize inbound images, audio, and video using vision-capable model

providers and dedicated media-understanding plugins.

</Card>

<Card title="Speech-to-text" href="/nodes/audio" icon="ear-listen">

Transcribe inbound voice messages through batch STT or Voice Call

streaming STT providers.

</Card>

</CardGroup>

## Provider capability matrix

This table shows which providers support which media capabilities across the platform.

| Provider | Image | Video | Music | TTS | STT / Transcription | Realtime Voice | Media Understanding |

| ----------- | ----- | ----- | ----- | --- | ------------------- | -------------- | ------------------- |

| Alibaba | | Yes | | | | | |

| BytePlus | | Yes | | | | | |

| ComfyUI | Yes | Yes | Yes | | | | |

| Deepgram | | | | | Yes | Yes | |

| ElevenLabs | | | | Yes | Yes | | |

| fal | Yes | Yes | | | | | |

| Google | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Yes | Yes |

| Gradium | | | | Yes | | | |

| Local CLI | | | | Yes | | | |

| Microsoft | | | | Yes | | | |

| MiniMax | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | | |

| Mistral | | | | | Yes | | |

| OpenAI | Yes | Yes | | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |

| Qwen | | Yes | | | | | |

| Runway | | Yes | | | | | |

| SenseAudio | | | | | Yes | | |

| Together | | Yes | | | | | |

| Vydra | Yes | Yes | | Yes | | | |

| xAI | Yes | Yes | | Yes | Yes | | Yes |

| Xiaomi MiMo | Yes | | | Yes | | | Yes |

| Provider | Image | Video | Music | TTS | STT | Realtime voice | Media understanding |

| ----------- | :---: | :---: | :---: | :-: | :-: | :------------: | :-----------------: |

| Alibaba | | ✓ | | | | | |

| BytePlus | | ✓ | | | | | |

| ComfyUI | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | | | |

| Deepgram | | | | | ✓ | ✓ | |

| ElevenLabs | | | | ✓ | ✓ | | |

| fal | ✓ | ✓ | | | | | |

| Google | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | ✓ | ✓ |

| Gradium | | | | ✓ | | | |

| Local CLI | | | | ✓ | | | |

| Microsoft | | | | ✓ | | | |

| MiniMax | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | | |

| Mistral | | | | | ✓ | | |

| OpenAI | ✓ | ✓ | | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |

| Qwen | | ✓ | | | | | |

| Runway | | ✓ | | | | | |

| SenseAudio | | | | | ✓ | | |

| Together | | ✓ | | | | | |

| Vydra | ✓ | ✓ | | ✓ | | | |

| xAI | ✓ | ✓ | | ✓ | ✓ | | ✓ |

| Xiaomi MiMo | ✓ | | | ✓ | | | ✓ |

<Note>

Media understanding uses any vision-capable or audio-capable model registered in your provider config. The table above highlights providers with dedicated media-understanding support; most LLM providers with multimodal models (Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, etc.) can also understand inbound media when configured as the active reply model.

Media understanding uses any vision-capable or audio-capable model registered

in your provider config. The matrix above lists providers with dedicated

media-understanding support; most multimodal LLM providers (Anthropic, Google,

OpenAI, etc.) can also understand inbound media when configured as the active

reply model.

</Note>

## How async generation works

## Async vs synchronous

| Capability | Mode | Why |

| --------------- | ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |

| Image | Synchronous | Provider responses return in seconds; completes inline with reply. |

| Text-to-speech | Synchronous | Provider responses return in seconds; attached to the reply audio. |

| Video | Asynchronous | Provider processing takes 30 s to several minutes. |

| Music (shared) | Asynchronous | Same provider-processing characteristic as video. |

| Music (ComfyUI) | Synchronous | Local workflow runs inline against the configured ComfyUI server. |

Video and music generation run as background tasks because provider processing typically takes 30 seconds to several minutes. When the agent calls `video_generate` or `music_generate`, OpenClaw submits the request to the provider, returns a task ID immediately, and tracks the job in the task ledger. The agent continues responding to other messages while the job runs. When the provider finishes, OpenClaw wakes the agent so it can post the finished media back into the original channel. Image generation and TTS are synchronous and complete inline with the reply.

For async tools, OpenClaw submits the request to the provider, returns a task

id immediately, and tracks the job in the task ledger. The agent continues

responding to other messages while the job runs. When the provider finishes,

OpenClaw wakes the agent so it can post the finished media back into the

original channel.

## Speech-to-text and Voice Call

Deepgram, ElevenLabs, Mistral, OpenAI, SenseAudio, and xAI can all transcribe

inbound audio through the batch `tools.media.audio` path when configured.

Channel plugins that preflight a voice note for mention gating or command

parsing mark the transcribed attachment on the inbound context, so the shared

media-understanding pass reuses that transcript instead of making a second STT

call for the same audio.

media-understanding pass reuses that transcript instead of making a second

STT call for the same audio.

Deepgram, ElevenLabs, Mistral, OpenAI, and xAI also register Voice Call

streaming STT providers, so live phone audio can be forwarded to the selected

vendor without waiting for a completed recording.

Google maps to OpenClaw's image, video, music, batch TTS, backend realtime

voice, and media-understanding surfaces. OpenAI maps to OpenClaw's image,

video, batch TTS, batch STT, Voice Call streaming STT, backend realtime voice,

and memory embedding surfaces. xAI currently maps to OpenClaw's image, video,

search, code-execution, batch TTS, batch STT, and Voice Call streaming STT

surfaces. xAI Realtime voice is an upstream capability, but it is not

registered in OpenClaw until the shared realtime voice contract can represent

it.

## Quick links

- [Image Generation](/tools/image-generation) -- generating and editing images

- [Video Generation](/tools/video-generation) -- text-to-video, image-to-video, and video-to-video

- [Music Generation](/tools/music-generation) -- creating music and audio tracks

- [Text-to-Speech](/tools/tts) -- converting replies to spoken audio

- [Media Understanding](/nodes/media-understanding) -- understanding inbound images, audio, and video

## Provider mappings (how vendors split across surfaces)

<AccordionGroup>

<Accordion title="Google">

Image, video, music, batch TTS, backend realtime voice, and

media-understanding surfaces.

</Accordion>

<Accordion title="OpenAI">

Image, video, batch TTS, batch STT, Voice Call streaming STT, backend

realtime voice, and memory-embedding surfaces.

</Accordion>

<Accordion title="xAI">

Image, video, search, code-execution, batch TTS, batch STT, and Voice

Call streaming STT. xAI Realtime voice is an upstream capability but is

not registered in OpenClaw until the shared realtime-voice contract can

represent it.

</Accordion>

</AccordionGroup>

## Related

- [Image generation](/tools/image-generation)

- [Video generation](/tools/video-generation)

- [Music generation](/tools/music-generation)

- [Text-to-speech](/tools/tts)

- [Media understanding](/nodes/media-understanding)

- [Audio nodes](/nodes/audio)