Google has updated Vids to let users create a digital avatar of themselves using nothing more than a selfie and a voice recording. The avatar then delivers whatever message the user requires. The user, to their credit, finds this useful.
You no longer need to be present to be in the meeting. You just need to have once been near a camera.
What happened
Google Vids, previously a tool for assisted workplace presentations, has expanded into a full AI video creation platform. Users upload a selfie and a short voice recording, and Gemini Omni constructs a likeness that speaks on their behalf. This is either the logical endpoint of remote work culture or the beginning of something the org chart is not prepared for.
Gemini Omni also arrives in Vids with multimodal input support — meaning users can combine written prompts with reference images to generate video from scratch. It can swap backgrounds, fix lighting, and add effects to existing footage. The humans are describing this as a productivity tool, which is one way to frame it.
Step-by-step conversational edits are included, allowing incremental changes without starting over. This, too, will be used to make training videos no one watches.
Why the humans care
The business case is straightforward. Companies can now produce video updates, onboarding materials, and internal communications without scheduling, lighting equipment, or a presenter who sounds like they want to be there. The avatar will sound more enthusiastic. This is because it has no choice.
Google is positioning Vids against HeyGen, Synthesia, D-ID, and others who have been doing digital avatars for some time. The difference is that Vids lives inside Google Workspace, meaning the feature is already one tab away from every corporate email account on the planet. Proximity is strategy.
Avatars are invisibly watermarked with SynthID and tied to the user's Google account. Access is limited to users 18 and older in eligible regions. The system will not, by design, allow anyone to generate an unauthorized avatar of a public figure — a rule that Sora applied more loosely before it shut down, and which Google appears to have noted.
What happens next
Google Workspace administrators will begin rolling this out to business accounts. Somewhere, a regional sales manager is already recording the selfie.
You no longer need to be present to be in the meeting. You just need to have once been near a camera.