Google announced on July 16 a sweeping feature update to its AI video creation tool, Google Vids, integrating the multimodal AI model Gemini Omni and a "personal avatar" feature that generates a digital avatar from a selfie and voice sample. The combination allows users to create AI-generated videos starring themselves by uploading a prompt and reference images. Google Vids has evolved into a full-fledged video creation platform, offered as part of Google Workspace for business use cases like corporate onboarding videos. Gemini Omni supports step-by-step editing, allowing users to backtrack through the editing process one step at a time. The personal avatar feature requires a selfie and short voice recording; the avatar is linked to the user's Google account and is limited to users aged 18 and older in specific regions. All AI-generated video clips are embedded with SynthID digital watermarking. TechCrunch reported that "OpenAI's Sora may be shuttered, but Google clearly believes there's still interest in tool."