Avid puts Gemini and Veo inside Media Composer with Ready to Play

Ready to Play adds Create Video, Modify Video, and Analyze Video to Media Composer. Avid charges nothing extra, but Gemini access needs a Google Cloud billing account.

Avid has taken the wraps off Ready to Play, a new AI extension for Media Composer built with Google's Gemini models and Veo. This is the first offering to ship under Avid's expanded strategic collaboration with Google Cloud, and it adds three workflows: Create Video, Modify Video, and Analyze Video.

As with most AI tools, they do exactly what the name suggests. Create Video generates video clips from text prompts or still images, which can be extracted from clips or sequences in the project. Results go directly into a Media Composer bin. Modify Video uses text prompts to explore visual changes to existing footage, such as removing a boom mic or other objects from a shot, or creating visual variations for collaborators and VFX teams. Analyze Video uses Google AI models to generate customizable descriptions that are added to clip metadata.

Existing sequences and source material are preserved. Create Video and Modify Video generate separate outputs without changing originals, and Analyze Video adds metadata without overwriting existing metadata.

Survey data

One thing we found interesting was the survey data that Avid included with the press release announcing the new features. Avid surveyed 120 editors, in partnership with American Cinema Editors (ACE), and found that 98% of those who use AI daily or weekly agree it is most valuable when it enhances creative intent. Of these frequent users, 76% say AI has helped them work faster, and more than 80% believe AI capabilities should be built into the tools they already use.

These are impressive figures, but you will notice that they apply to editors already using AI. Arguably, folding in the responses from those who are less frequent users would make for more interesting data.

Availability and Google Cloud costs

Ready to Play is available now for Media Composer Ultimate and Enterprise users at no additional charge from Avid. However, access to supported Google Gemini models requires an eligible Google Cloud billing account, and customers manage any applicable usage charges through Google Cloud.