Google is adding a new AI feature to YouTube that lets creators build photorealistic avatars of themselves and drop them into Shorts. The tool, first teased in a YouTube blog post earlier this year, is now live for some users and will roll out gradually.
The avatar system is aimed squarely at short-form video, giving creators a way to appear in clips without always recording fresh footage, while YouTube tries to keep tighter control over how AI is used on its platform.
Creators can set up avatars through either the main YouTube app or the YouTube Create app. In the main app, the process runs through the AI Playground experience:
- Open AI Playground in the YouTube app.
- Capture a “live selfie” that records both your face and your voice.
- Preview the generated photorealistic avatar and either accept it or retake the capture.
In the YouTube Create app, the flow is broadly similar, but users first navigate to the My Avatar homepage before going through the same capture and review steps.
YouTube offers a few basic recommendations to help the AI build a clean likeness:
- Hold the phone at eye level and keep your face centred.
- Ensure your whole face is visible with good lighting.
- Record in a quiet area with no one else in the background.
There are also guardrails around who can create avatars. You must be the owner of the YouTube account and at least 18 years old.
Once an avatar is set up, creators can generate new content by typing a text prompt and letting the system build a short video clip. According to 9to5Google, these avatar clips can be up to around eight seconds in length. Alternatively, YouTube lets users insert their avatar into existing “eligible” Shorts by tapping Remix and then choosing Reimagine with the avatar selected.
YouTube is pitching avatars as a way to give creators more control over their digital identity at a time when AI-made deepfakes and manipulated media are proliferating. Rather than trying to keep AI off the platform, the company is layering in more AI-native tools, but with explicit markings and management options.
Any video generated with an avatar will carry YouTube’s AI disclosure, along with visible watermarks and labels. Those include identifiers such as SynthID and C2PA metadata, which are intended to make AI-generated content easier to spot and trace.
Creators retain the ability to manage how their avatar is used over time. YouTube says:
- Avatars can be retaken or deleted at any time via the YouTube or YouTube Create app.
- Videos featuring an avatar can also be deleted, though removing a video does not automatically remove the underlying avatar or any original source video.
- Creators can limit who is allowed to remix their videos that use an avatar.
YouTube will automatically remove avatars that sit idle. If an avatar has not been used to create new video content for three years, the platform will delete it.
The feature fits into a larger run of AI tools that YouTube has introduced over the last year. Those updates include automatic upscaling for low-resolution videos, automatic editing assistance for creators, and an AI-generated carousel for search results.
For now, the avatar rollout is gradual, and it is geared toward Shorts assuming creators still allow their Shorts to appear on their channels where fast, repeatable formats are a natural fit for AI-driven, avatar-based video creation.