OpenAI's Sora may be gone, but Google believes there's still demand for a tool that lets you become the star of your own AI-generated videos. On Thursday, the tech giant unveiled an update to Google Vids that enables you to craft a personalized digital avatar—one that mirrors your appearance and voice—using just a selfie and a voice recording. Beyond that, Google announced it's integrating its multi-modal AI model, Gemini Omni, into Vids. This allows you to generate videos by combining a written prompt with reference images you upload. Omni then merges these elements to produce the AI video you envision. It can also handle tasks like swapping out backgrounds, fixing lighting in videos recorded on your phone, or adding special effects. Additionally, Omni now supports step-by-step edits, letting you tweak your video incrementally instead of restarting from scratch.

These updates transform Google Vids from its original purpose as an AI-enhanced workplace presentation tool into a more comprehensive video creation platform. By integrating Vids into Google Workspace, the company signals its use as a business tool for tasks like company updates or training videos. However, the introduction of personalized avatars and conversational editing could position it as a competitor to other AI video startups and tools such as HeyGen, Synthesia, Captions, D-ID, and others. Google notes that these new AI avatars will be linked to the account holder's likeness, tied to their Google account, and invisibly watermarked with SynthID. (This likely means no one will be able to create bizarre AI videos of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, unlike the freedom OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave users with Sora when it was active.)

The company also states that access to personal avatars is restricted to users in certain regions who are 18 years or older.