Even though OpenAI's Sora may have already stepped down, Google still believes that users' obsession with appearing in AI videos has not cooled down. This Thursday, the tech giant rolled out a major update to Google Vids: you just need to upload a selfie and a voice recording, and the system will create a personalized digital avatar that closely resembles your appearance and voice. In other words, there's no need for a real person on camera; a digital twin can speak on your behalf.

Alongside the digital human, Google integrated its multimodal model Gemini Omni into the Vids platform. This combination turns video generation into a conversation between text and images—users can combine text prompts with uploaded reference images to generate targeted videos. Omni also comes with several practical features: changing the background of a casually shot video from your phone, adjusting lighting, and adding effects is no problem. Even more appealing is its support for progressive editing, allowing creators to make changes step by step during the creation process without having to start over if something isn't satisfactory, thus avoiding the frustration of redoing everything from scratch.

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This series of updates is transforming Google Vids from an AI-assisted tool for office presentations into a versatile video creation platform. By integrating Vids into Google Workspace, Google sends a clear signal: it wants to become a commercial tool for businesses to create internal announcements, training videos, and similar content. However, these new features—personalized avatars and conversational editing—inevitably put it on the same track as AI video startups like HeyGen, Synthesia, Captions, and D-ID.