Google it’s entering into “the star of one’s own” AI-made videos without the need for a camera set.” The tech company announced Thursday that two new updates to Google Vids, its AI video creation tool, will let you star in your own videos, which you can now create with a typed prompt.
Personal avatars are the first new feature I’m referring to, and all you need to create a personalized digital avatar of yourself – one that will look and sound exactly like you – is submit a selfie and a voice recording. The second update is the introduction of Google’s AI model Gemini Omni at Google Videos.
Together, these updates will allow you to create your own personalized videos with a simple prompt and any reference photos you upload, bringing your vision to life. Omni mixes these inputs and the result is the personalized AI video you dream of.
You can make small changes to your content by adding a different background, adjusting video lighting, and adding many other post-production effects to make your Google Vid stand out.
And if you make a mistake, Omni lets you walk through your video edits step by step to streamline the process. It’s a nice update from the old way of abandoning an entire project and starting from scratch.
Google Vids’ days as an AI-assisted workflow tool are over, as these updates evolve the platform into a full-fledged video creation tool. Vids is now part of Google Workspace, so you can use it to create videos that match your company’s communications materials (think onboarding videos).
Personal avatars help make this content more personalized and conversational, which can further engage the viewer.
It’s not the first tool of its kind (see HeyGen and Synthesia as examples of what’s already out there), but attaching Google’s name to this type of AI-powered video creation will likely spark significant competition.
For the sake of transparency, AI-generated content created here will include an invisible SynthID watermarkletting people know that it was generated by AI and is not representative of real life. As for the new personal avatars feature, these images will be linked to a person’s Google account and will only be available to people 18 or older in certain regions.
A Google spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
