Another Crazy Day in AI: The Creative Control Dilemma in Generated Content
- Wowza Team
- Oct 16
- 4 min read
Hello, AI Enthusiasts.
Hope your week’s been steady so far, or at least moving at a manageable speed.
Google DeepMind is cranking things up with the latest upgrade to its generative video model, giving creators more hands-on control over every frame, sound, and scene.
Meanwhile, Apple’s latest chip flexes serious power for AI running directly on your device.
And Anthropic’s lightweight model wants to make that power available to anyone, anywhere, in real time.
Just when you think it’s slowing down… it speeds right back up.
Here's another crazy day in AI:
Google launches Veo 3.1 with enhanced controls
Apple introduces M5 and pushes AI power further
Anthropic rolls out Claude Haiku 4.5 with major upgrades
Some AI tools to try out
TODAY'S FEATURED ITEM: Veo 3.1 Adds Audio and Editing Tools to Flow
Image Credit: Wowza (created with Ideogram)
How much creative control should you have over an AI-generated video?
Google DeepMind has introduced Veo 3.1, the newest version of its generative video model, now integrated with Flow, its AI-powered filmmaking platform. In a recent article on The Keyword, Jess Gallegos (Senior Product Manager, Google DeepMind) and Thomas Iljic (Director of Product Management, Google Labs) share how this update expands what creators can do within Flow — from controlling visuals and structure to integrating sound. Since Flow’s launch five months ago, it’s already powered over 275 million videos, and this latest release builds on that momentum with a stronger focus on precision and creative flexibility.
What's new in this release:
Sound enters the picture — Generated audio now enhances tools like “Ingredients to Video,” “Frames to Video,” and “Extend,” helping bring scenes to life with sound design that matches the visuals.
More control over visual details — Users can now combine multiple reference images to guide lighting, texture, and style, allowing for a more deliberate artistic direction.
Smoother storytelling through transitions — “Frames to Video” connects two stills into one continuous clip, useful for creating narrative or stylistic flow.
Extended shot creation — The “Extend” tool generates videos that can last a minute or more, maintaining continuity from one clip to the next.
In-platform editing capabilities — The new “Insert” feature lets users add new elements seamlessly into scenes, while an upcoming “Remove” tool will allow for natural object deletion without breaking the composition.
Access across platforms — Veo 3.1 is available through the Gemini API, Vertex AI, and the Gemini app, making its tools accessible to a wide range of users, from developers to enterprise teams.
The editing capabilities Google has added here speak to something anyone who creates content understands—your first version is almost never your final version. Being able to tweak and adjust generated clips without starting from scratch sounds useful on paper, but there's a gap between what's promised and what actually works when you're trying to finish a project. If you insert a character into an existing scene, will the lighting look right when you examine it closely? Can you remove an unwanted object from a busy background without creating visual artifacts that give away the edit? These are the kinds of details that matter when you're evaluating whether a tool fits into your workflow or just creates more problems to solve.
Then there's the audio situation. Anyone who's worked with video knows that silent footage only gets you so far. Having audio generate automatically means one less thing to handle separately, which is convenient. But Google calling these audio features "experimental and actively improving" is probably something to pay attention to. It hints that the results might be inconsistent depending on what you're making. Maybe it handles ambient sounds well but struggles with more complex audio. Maybe it works fine for rough drafts but doesn't quite reach the level you'd want for finished work. The honest answer is that it probably depends—on your project, your standards, and what you're willing to accept. Some people will find the generated audio perfectly adequate, while others will still end up doing custom sound work. That's not a criticism, just a reality of tools that are still evolving and trying to serve different needs at once.
Read the full article here.
OTHER INTERESTING AI HIGHLIGHTS:
Apple Introduces M5 and Pushes AI Power Further
/Apple Newsroom, Press Release
Apple has unveiled M5, its most powerful chip yet—built on third-generation 3-nanometer technology and designed to deliver the next big leap in AI performance. The new 10-core GPU includes a Neural Accelerator in each core, offering over 4x the peak GPU compute performance for AI compared to M4. With a faster Neural Engine, higher unified memory bandwidth, and the world’s fastest performance core, M5 brings significant boosts across MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro. The chip is purpose-built for on-device AI, enabling faster creative workflows, richer graphics, and more responsive Apple Intelligence features.
Read more here.
Anthropic Rolls Out Claude Haiku 4.5 with Major Upgrades
/Anthropic Newsroom, Product Release
Anthropic has released Claude Haiku 4.5, the newest version of its lightweight AI model that delivers near-frontier coding performance at a fraction of the cost. It runs twice as fast and one-third as expensive as Claude Sonnet 4 while even outperforming it in certain tasks like computer use. Haiku 4.5 is also Anthropic’s safest model to date, showing improved alignment and lower rates of concerning behavior in safety evaluations. Available now through the Claude API, Claude Code, and major cloud platforms, Haiku 4.5 makes high-performance AI more accessible for real-time and developer use.
Read more here.
SOME AI TOOLS TO TRY OUT:
That’s a wrap on today’s Almost Daily craziness.
Catch us almost every day—almost! 😉
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