Bridging the chasm: Generative AI as the new media engine

In the rapidly evolving world of digital media and marketing, creating engaging, high-quality content at scale is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity. Businesses are constantly seeking innovative ways to capture audience attention and the next generation of generative AI tools is providing the answer.

With its transformative power in creating images, videos and music, GenAI is no longer futuristic sci-fi—it is here today, completely reshaping how we create and consume media. This has also led to a paradigm shift: engaging content creation is no longer the forte of just media agencies. Every business can now harness next-generation AI models and tools. Much like the old saying “every business is a tech company,” the new age reality is- every business must think like both a tech and media company.

Creativity for everyone

GenAI is a game-changer for creators everywhere. These powerful models democratize art, putting professional-grade tools of expression directly into anyone’s hands. Whether you are a seasoned artist or a beginner, you can now bring your wildest ideas to life with stunning images, captivating videos and original music.

At the heart of this transformation is Google’s new suite of generative media models:

• Imagen 4 for image generation.
• Veo 3 for high-resolution, realistic video creation.
• Lyria 2 for musicians and audio innovators.

Let’s dive deeper into how these tools are redefining creative workflows.

Imagen 4: Giving wings to your thoughts

Imagen 4 allows your imagination to become visual reality. From hyper-personalized marketing campaigns to rapid prototyping in design, Imagen 4 is set to become indispensable for creative and commercial endeavors alike. The possibilities are endless—product positioning, virtual try-ons, or concept outlines across industries.

High-impact use cases include:

• Marketing and advertising: Generate countless ad creatives, social content and visuals tailored to specific demographics, campaign goals and testing needs
• E-commerce and retail: Produce professional-quality product images in diverse styles without physical prototypes or expensive photography
• Entertainment and media: Create storyboards, concept art and promotional illustrations at speed
• Gaming: Rapidly design immersive environments, textures and characters
• Fashion and design: Visualize new clothing concepts, test fabrics and develop mock-ups without samples
• Education and training: Develop custom diagrams, illustrations and interactive training content that makes learning engaging and memorable

Veo 3: Bringing ideas to motion

Google’s Veo 3 is a cutting-edge AI model that generates cinematic, high-definition videos from text prompts. Its ability to translate natural language or static designs into fluid video sequences, complete with native audio, opens new frontiers across industries.

High-impact use cases include:

• Marketing and advertising: Produce professional video ads, demos and social content at lightning speed
• Media and entertainment: Assist with storyboarding, animation, fillers and even short films with varied cinematic styles
• Education and training: Generate instructional videos and simulations and publishing houses can repurpose assets into interactive learning tools
• Gaming and VR: Create immersive cutscenes, assets and environments that bring virtual worlds to life

Lyria 2: Be your own musician

Google’s Lyria 2, along with Lyria RealTime, is reinventing how music is composed and experienced. Primarily a text-to-music generation tool, it is already disrupting music creation across media, entertainment and gaming.

High-impact use cases include:

• Custom soundtracks and scores: Generate royalty-free background scores for films, podcasts and digital content
• Musical prototyping: Enable composers to brainstorm and test multiple arrangements instantly
• Live music generation: Power performances where sound evolves in real-time
• Gaming:
• Marketing and advertising: Craft unique sonic brand identities and jingles
• Retail and hospitality: Produce ambient music tailored to physical brand spaces

Navigating the new frontier of creativity

To unlock the full potential of Google’s Imagen 4, Veo 3 and Lyria 2, professionals need more than technical knowledge—they require a fusion of creativity and craft.

Essential creative skills include:

• Advanced prompt engineering – Crafting nuanced text prompts that deliver precise styles, moods and outputs
• Visual and auditory literacy – Understanding design aesthetics, color theory, lighting and music theory
• Storytelling – Building narrative arcs, character consistency and emotional pacing in content
• Critical evaluation – Identifying the best results among AI outputs and refining them
• Iterative mindset – Experimenting with prompts and embracing unexpected outputs as creative inspiration

The professional of the future is the “creative technologist”—someone who bridges artistic vision with technical execution.

Beyond creativity: Generative AI as a business growth engine

While Google’s Imagen, Veo and Lyria are redefining creativity, their impact extends far beyond the creative domain. For enterprises, these tools represent a powerful engine of business growth, efficiency and ROI.

Generative AI is no longer about “can we create?” but “how fast, how personalized and how scalable can we create—and monetize?”

Reference architecture for adoption

Here’s how enterprises can leverage Google’s generative media models in practice:

1. User input: Images, prompts, or both are uploaded through a frontend UI
2. Model processing in Vertex AI Studio: Imagen generates visuals, Veo produces video, Lyria creates audio and Gemini orchestrates storyboards and scripts
3. Orchestration: Define camera angles, character actions, soundscapes and motion sequences
4. Customization layer: Tailor outputs to brand guidelines or metadata needs
5. Final output and storage: Store completed assets securely in Cloud Storage
6. Security and monitoring: Enable IAM, logging, monitoring and Cloud Armor protection

HCLTech in action: Real-world applications

HCLTech has been an early adopter, helping global clients unlock value from Google’s generative media suite:

• Airline training content: Transforming aircraft maintenance SOPs into engaging video-based training with Gemini 2.5 and Veo 3—delivering faster, cheaper and more effective results
• Beauty retailer promotions: Creating product promotional videos using Veo 3 and Imagen, enhancing brand positioning with stunning visuals at scale
• Internal marketing: Using Imagen 4 and Veo 3 to craft high-impact solution demos and showcase assets—garnering strong feedback

Best practices for enterprises

To maximize business value, HCLTech recommends:

1. Prompt engineering: Be specific, structured and experiment with style modifiers
2. Iterative refinement: Generate multiple outputs, use negative prompts and fine-tune progressively
3. Quality control: Set explicit aspect ratios, resolutions and maintain consistency with seeds
4. Style and branding: Maintain brand palette and design language across projects
5. Ethical and responsible use: Avoid biased or harmful outputs, respect copyright and label AI-generated assets transparently

ROI of generative media models

Early results from HCLTech show 75–80% ROI and 3x effort reduction in marketing video production using Google’s generative media suite. But the impact goes far deeper:

• Accelerated content creation: Compress production cycles, from scripting to editing
• Hyper-personalization: Leverage user data for ads and recommendations at scale
• New monetization streams: Dynamic ad campaigns, personalized freemium upgrades and digital asset repurpose
• Workflow transformation: Automate backend content management, freeing human teams for high-value creative tasks

The generative AI revolution – Reshaping the media industry

GenAI is not simply a new tool—it is a seismic shift in how businesses create, personalize and monetize content. The media industry is being redefined before our eyes and Google’s generative media suite is leading this transformation.

For businesses, this means lower costs, faster delivery, deeper personalization and entirely new business models.

The revolution is only just beginning. At HCLTech, we are helping enterprises unlock this future—where creativity and business outcomes converge.

To explore how Google’s generative media models can supercharge your storytelling? Let’s connect.