Google Vids adds Gemini Omni prompt-based editing and personal avatars

Google added two new capabilities to Google Vids on July 16, 2026: Gemini Omni, a natural-language video editing tool, and personal avatars, which let users generate talking-head video clips of themselves without a camera.

What's new

With Gemini Omni, users can edit AI-generated or phone-shot footage using plain-language instructions. As Google describes it, "whether you're refining a video you generated with Omni or a clip you shot on your phone, you can use everyday language to prompt Vids to swap backgrounds, fix lighting or add effects." The tool supports iterative, step-by-step edits rather than forcing a restart from scratch, and it accepts image references — photos or sketches — alongside text prompts to guide changes.

Personal avatars work by having a user "upload a selfie and a short voice recording. From there, type what you want to say and your avatar will deliver the message — no recording required." Avatars are tied to the account holder's own likeness and cannot be used to depict other people. The feature currently carries additional restrictions: it's limited to specific regions and to users 18 and older.

Both features are rolling out to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers as well as Google Workspace business customers. Every clip generated through these tools carries an invisible SynthID digital watermark so the content can be verified as AI-generated.

Context

Google Vids launched as part of Workspace to give non-editors an AI-assisted way to build presentation and marketing-style videos, and Google has been steadily layering in more of its Gemini and Veo model capabilities — image-to-video generation, script-to-storyboard tools, and now prompt-driven post-production editing. Personal avatars follow a broader industry push toward synthetic-presenter video, an area also being worked by HeyGen, Synthesia, and, within the frontier labs, OpenAI's Sora tools.

The update lands the same week Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook and added a secure cloud computer for native code execution, part of a pattern of Google consolidating more of its consumer AI tooling under the Gemini brand and pushing new capabilities into existing Workspace products rather than shipping standalone apps.

Why it matters

Prompt-based editing collapses a real skill barrier: swapping a background or fixing lighting in a video traditionally required editing software knowledge that Vids' target users — Workspace customers building internal or marketing content — typically don't have. Personal avatars go further, letting someone produce a polished talking-head video without ever being on camera, which is useful for training material, internal updates, or localized marketing but also raises the same authenticity questions facing every synthetic-media product: Google's SynthID watermarking and its age/region gating on avatars are explicit acknowledgments of that risk. For Workspace, tying both features to Pro/Ultra and business tiers gives Google a concrete monetization hook for its video AI stack rather than folding it into free tiers, a notable contrast with rivals still competing partly on free access to win users.