A friend's avatar in your own videos
Google's AI app "Gemini" on Oct. 29 (Oct. 30 Japan time) began letting users share their "avatar," a digital double of themselves, with friends. Gemini's official account announced it on X.
An avatar is created by recording one's face and voice with a smartphone camera and microphone. Users can call it up by typing "@" in a prompt and selecting a name, and can make themselves appear in any scene with the image generator "Nano Banana" or the video generator "Gemini Omni." People it is shared with can also call it up in prompts in the same way to make it appear in images and videos.
Consent and revocation
To share, users select their avatar in settings, enter the other person's Gmail address and send it. It becomes usable only after the recipient accepts. Users can change who can use it and for how long at any time; once access is revoked, no new content can be created, but images and videos already made are not deleted.
Avatars can be created only by people 18 or older with personal Google accounts. The feature is not available in the European Economic Area, Switzerland or Britain, and supports only English. Creating videos with an avatar requires a paid Google AI plan.
The avatar feature has been widely available since around June, and in July signs were found that a sharing feature was being prepared in the app.
