YouTube Shorts launches AI avatars: clone yourself for short videos

YouTube Shorts is starting to roll out a new AI feature that lets video creators make a realistic digital clone of themselves, known as an avatar, and use it in short videos, The Verge reports.

What the new AI avatar can do

An avatar is a digital version of the user, which YouTube describes as a way to look and sound exactly like the real person in front of the camera. The company offers two use cases: insert a ready-made avatar into an already filmed Shorts clip, or use it to generate an entirely new video right away.

• An avatar can be inserted into existing Shorts or used to create new videos from scratch
• YouTube says the avatar will "look and sound like you"
• The company presents the feature as a safer and more secure way to use AI, not as a way around the rules
• Earlier this year, YouTube had already hinted at launching a similar feature, The Verge notes
• Settings for creating, re-recording and deleting an avatar are available through the YouTube help center

"Avatars will look and sound like you" — from the official feature description published by

YouTube.

Why the platform is taking a risk with this feature

YouTube is expanding its generative AI tools while trying to contain the flood of low-quality AI content on the platform, so-called AI slop, as well as deepfake scams and impersonation of other people, The Verge notes. The outlet describes this as the platform's "complicated" relationship with AI-generated content: on one hand, the company adds new generative features for creators; on the other, it regularly faces abuse of the same technologies by other users.

That is why YouTube stresses the wording "a safer and more secure way" to use AI for one's own likeness, rather than simply allowing any deepfakes without restrictions. The avatar is tied to the identity of a specific creator and managed through their own account in the YouTube Create app, not through third-party tools, whose spread the platform has already tried to limit among other creators.

Impersonation is not an abstract problem for YouTube: The Verge directly links the launch of official avatars to the platform's broader fight against deepfake scams and fakes of well-known people. By making the cloning tool built-in and under the platform's own control, YouTube is trying to seize the initiative from third-party services that have already been used to create fake videos without the person's consent.

How avatars change the work of Shorts creators

For short-video creators, the feature removes the need to record themselves on camera again for every new clip: once set up, an avatar can be used to generate several videos at once. YouTube frames this as an expansion of creative options, not a replacement for live filming. Creators decide for themselves when to use the digital copy and when to shoot regular video.

What this means

The launch of AI avatars shows where the big video platforms are heading: a generative clone of yourself is becoming a standard content-creation tool rather than a niche technology for enthusiasts. At the same time, YouTube acknowledges that the more widely it opens access to such tools, the sharper the question of telling a creator's official avatar from a fraudulent deepfake becomes, and the company will have to tackle that problem alongside the growing popularity of the feature itself.