AI-generated video has gone from nightmare-fuel, to an imaginary Will Smith creepily eating spaghetti, to “is that AI?” in a very short amount of time. Now, with the release of Google’s Veo 3 video generation system to the public, the technology has experienced a significant jump in both ease of use and accuracy.

This is great from a purely technological perspective, but with each leap in any technology, it opens up new opportunities for scams. One area that’s particularly vulnerable is the crowdfunding industry.

Veo 3 Is a Huge Leap in AI Video

Showcased in May 2025 during the AI-centric Google IO conference, Veo 3 addresses most of the serious weaknesses we’ve seen in AI video generation so far.

First, the actual fidelity and believability has taken a big step towards being indistinguishable from real footage. Sure, I still spotted some weirdness here and there, but most of it would stand up to more than just casual scrutiny. Google has refined the tools used to shape what the final product will look like, and lets you import elements into each clip before generating it. Those elements themselves can, of course, also be AI-generated, but it means you can consistently include the same characters and objects in your clip as you go from scene to scene.

Another big feature is the ability to extend clips. So if a generated clip goes off the rails, or you simply want to build a longer scene, you can trim the existing clip to the last good spot and add on to it. This is part of the Flow platform that combines Veo 3 with Google Imagen, Gemini, and other tools into a total video creation tool.

Finally, Veo 3 can generate audio to go with the video it makes. So sound effects, music, and dialog appropriate to the scene are all generated, and the video is basically ready to use right away. In the past, you’d have to jump through quite a few hoops to add audio to AI clips, but that’s no longer needed.

Assuming that you’re happy to pay the subscription fees (which can be as high as $250 a month), you have access to a tool that will let you make virtually any type of clip. From infomercials to high-quality movie scenes.

This is clearly going to be a game-changer across almost every industry that works with video, but it’s that easy access to anyone with the entry-fee that really makes this a source of danger.

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Kickstarter Campaigns Rely On Video to Convince Backers

Crowdfunding might not be at the peak of its popularity as it once was, but instead it’s now an established part of starting a business. When it goes well, we get awesome new products or entertainment. When it goes south, well, a lot of people lose money, but usually it’s a relatively small hit on a per-person basis, and everyone knows it’s possible that you’re backing something that will go nowhere.

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Whether anyone puts up real money for a Kickstarter or other crowdfunding campaign is all about how convincing it can be. I think the cornerstone of any campaign is the videos. This is where you show that you’re a real team of people, with a real working prototype of your product. It’s the most direct way of getting an audience excited about what you want to do.

Also, whether we like to admit it or not, people are more likely to throw money at something that has high production values. Since it’s often seen as evidence that the people behind the campaign are serious.

So I can totally imagine someone concocting something appealing, plausible, and with the safety net of being allowed to fail as all Kickstarters are, without taking any risk or putting in any effort. If this becomes rampant enough, it could sink the very concept of crowdfunding for good, since all trust would be lost.

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Veo 3 Lets You Fake Anything From Games to Gadgets

The problem is that with technologies like Veo 3, anyone can quickly and cheaply set up campaigns with videos for products that don’t exist will never exist, and they have no intention of making them. Of course, you could already do this without AI, just by making mock-ups and doctoring your videos. However, this requires substantial skill and effort, which raises the bar for successfully pulling such a scam off.

It also means the real people behind the scam can hide their identities, because you can simply invent people, and have them appear in your videos. We’ve already seen scams where company websites show teams that have AI-generated profile pictures—this would take that to the next level.

Since everyone seems to be selling a humanoid robot these days, I used Veo 3 to make this clip of a fake How-To Geek robot.

It has some tell-tale glitches, but with enough rolls of the dice and a little editing, someone would fall for it.

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Google Offers AI Detection, But Is It Enough?

During the same Google IO presentation where Veo 3 was showcased, Google also mentioned SynthID. Basically, all content generated using a Google AI tool deliberately embeds a watermark that’s invisible to people, but that the SynthID tool can detect.

This is different from AI “detection” software that tries to use an algorithm to guess whether content has been generated by AI. The watermark has been put in there on purpose, so if it’s detected there’s little to no chance that it’s wrong.

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However, there are issues even with this approach. First, obfuscating the watermark by processing the video somehow might be possible, but even then it’s not going to be a simple matter for a crowdfunding platform to run SynthID on every video that’s posted. Apart from that, while Veo 3 is the most impressive example of video generation at the moment, at least in my opinion, that doesn’t mean other platforms won’t reach the same level soon. That also goes for local models which scammers could run on local hardware at some point. Even if that’s not possible today, ignoring the inevitable is just kicking the can down the road.

The only advice I can give is that you should double, no, triple your skepticism when looking at any images or videos on the internet in the post-AI era. Especially when it’s for something asking for your money.