Google Backs $3.5 Million Future Vision Film Competition With XPRIZE

Google is teaming up with XPRIZE and Range Media Partners on a new $3.5 million global film competition that aims to imagine an optimistic, technology-driven future.

The initiative, called the Future Vision XPRIZE, is being supported through Google’s 100 ZEROS program and focuses on short-form storytelling that looks ahead to what technology could enable. Filmmakers are invited to submit short films and trailers that depict hopeful, forward-looking futures, rather than dystopian ones, with an emphasis on how innovation and emerging tools can shape what comes next.

Submissions to the Future Vision XPRIZE are open now and run through August 15, 2026. The competition accepts a range of formats, including traditional live-action, animation and projects that use AI tools. Google highlights its own AI creative tools, such as Google Flow, as examples of how entrants might integrate artificial intelligence into their process, but AI use is not a requirement.

As the competition’s creative technology partner, Google plans to work directly with the grand prize winner beyond the contest itself. The company says it will provide creative and production support to help expand the winning three-minute submission into a full-length feature film. The stated goal is to lower production barriers and augment the creative process for emerging filmmakers, using technology to help scale a short concept into a more ambitious project.

The $3.5 million prize pool is designed to attract global participation, with the organisers positioning the challenge as both a storytelling contest and a prompt for rethinking how people imagine the role of technology in society. By centering optimism and possibility, the Future Vision XPRIZE is set up to surface narratives that contrast with the more familiar dark or cautionary tech futures that dominate popular media.

Google frames its involvement as part of a broader effort to support creators with tools and resources that can make high-end production more accessible. Through the 100 ZEROS initiative and this partnership with XPRIZE and Range Media Partners, the company is tying its AI and production capabilities to a concrete creative outcome: a feature-length film born from a three-minute vision of the future.

Those interested in the competition can already begin preparing and submitting their entries ahead of the August 15, 2026 deadline. The organisers are open to a wide spectrum of creative approaches, provided the work aligns with the central brief: an optimistic, technology-forward vision of the future.