I Cloned Myself With Gemini’s AI Avatar Tool. The Result Was Unnervingly Me

It’s a beautiful, balmy afternoon at Dolores Park in San Francisco, and I’m singing a birthday song to a prehistoric dinosaur. A cupcake with a pink candle magically appears in my empty hand as I finish my serenade. When I blow out the flame, a calm look of contentment washes over the CGI-esque creature.

While the man in this AI video looks and sounds just like me, the clip was actually generated using one of the new features available in Google’s Gemini app: avatars . These digital recreations are similar to the core features of OpenAI’s now-defunct Sora app . It’s a digital clone of you that can be inserted into AI videos. Avatars are powered by the company’s new Omni video model, and the feature is only available to subscribers. I pay $20 a month for Google’s AI Pro plan and quickly maxed out Gemini’s usage limits, which reset every 5 hours. I simply asked a few questions and generated two 10-second clips featuring my avatar, before I was told to wait until later. My first two glimpses of what Omni can do with my likeness were of me singing to a dino in San Francisco and surfing under the Golden Gate Bridge. I was simultaneously impressed and freaked out. The content was cringeworthy, with some jumbled moments and nonsensical outfits, but that man in the video was me. I used my fingers to zoom in on its face and really watch the mouth move. The teeth were a bit off, but otherwise that’s Reece, right on down to the chin fat. Unlike OpenAI , which previously let users decide whether they wanted others to generate AI videos using their likeness, Google only lets adult users make videos with their own avatar.

Key points

• While the man in this AI video looks and sounds just like me, the clip was actually generated using one of the new features available in Google’s Gemini app: avatars .
• These digital recreations are similar to the core features of OpenAI’s now-defunct Sora app .
• It’s a digital clone of you that can be inserted into AI videos.
• Avatars are powered by the company’s new Omni video model, and the feature is only available to subscribers.
• I pay $20 a month for Google’s AI Pro plan and quickly maxed out Gemini’s usage limits, which reset every 5 hours.