Google Veo 3.1 for marketers
The one thing you need to know in AI today | AI Ready CMO
Version numbers are boring. A jump from 3.0 to 3.1 suggests bug fixes and minor tweaks, not features that actually change how you work. Google’s Veo 3.1, which dropped this week, breaks that pattern.
The update adds three capabilities that solve real problems for anyone creating video content.
First, “Ingredients”—upload up to three reference images of a character, object, or scene, and Veo maintains consistency across multiple shots. If you’ve ever tried to generate a character-driven piece with AI and watched your protagonist morph into three different people across five clips, you know why this matters.
Second, “Scene extension” lets you chain clips together to create videos over a minute long. Each new clip starts from the final second of the previous one, maintaining visual continuity. Think commercials, not just social snippets.
Third, “First and last frame” control—give Veo a starting image and an ending image, and it generates the transition between them, complete with audio.
The Wander commercial is worth watching because it shows what’s possible when you combine these features. It’s a full 60-second spot for a vacation rental company, generated entirely with Veo 3.1. The pacing works, the shots connect, and crucially, it doesn’t look like someone’s fever dream. It looks like a commercial.
Veo 3.1 is available now through Google’s Gemini API, Flow video editor (where it is the easiest to try), and Vertex AI. It’s the same price as Veo 3, which means the features are the actual upgrade, not just a way to charge more. For rapid prototyping, A/B testing video concepts, or creating internal presentation content, this closes the gap between “interesting toy” and “tool I’d actually use.”
The quality still isn’t perfect—some movements look slightly off, and you’ll spot the AI fingerprints if you’re looking for them. But if your alternative is spending three days and $15,000 on a shoot for something that needs to exist by Friday, or if you need ten variations of a concept to test which direction resonates, Veo 3.1 just became a legitimate option.
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